South Korea’s announcement on Thursday last week that it was scrapping an intelligence-sharing pact with Japan could harm efforts to understand threats from North Korea and potentially weaken the ability to monitor its missile launches, officials and analysts said.
Seoul’s decision to abandon the accord drew a swift protest from Tokyo and ratcheted up the neighbors’ feud over history and trade.
The agreement had been due for automatic renewal on Saturday.
South Korea’s decision not to renew the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) will complicate joint efforts to detect and assess North Korea’s missile program, as both must now rely on sharing information through the US, their common ally.
Much of the intelligence shared pertained to longer-term threats or post-event analysis of North Korea’s missile launches, and officials emphasized that real-time missile defenses do not rely on the arrangement.
However, analysts said that scrapping the pact could cause more acute problems if a crisis breaks out and the two nations lack a foundation of swift sharing of information.
‘THREE BLIND MEN’
The pact was significant as a cornerstone of three-way cooperation with the US, said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defense and Security Forum in Seoul.
“When it comes to North Korea, it’s like three blind men touching an elephant to see what it’s like,” Yang said.
“Sharing intelligence is meant to paint a big picture using various assets and channels, but now one of the men is out,” Yang added.
Less cooperation between South Korea and Japan could lead to less detailed analysis of intelligence on North Korea, analysts said.
For example, Japan has sometimes provided information on long-range missile tests by North Korea that landed far from South Korea.
Tokyo in turn will be denied access to Seoul’s intelligence on Pyongyang gathered through human networks, such as defectors and agents around the world, a South Korean military official said.
“For Japan, it’s very painful to lose North Korea-related information gained through human intelligence,” retired Japanese admiral Yoji Koda said.
There have been 29 instances of information traded between South Korea and Japan since they signed the pact in 2016, said South Korean Legislator Kim Jong-dae, who got data from the military.
In addition, almost all of this year’s eight exchanges happened after North Korea began testing a new type of short-range missile late last month.
“Short-range missiles are relatively easier to detect for both sides, but Japan could have better knowledge if North Korea fires mid and long-range missiles, which are out of our radars, though we work with the United States,” the South Korean military official said.
LONG-TERM VIEW
The agreement helped in making joint longer-term assessments of North Korea’s threats as each side would provide information upon request, unlike South Korea and the US, which share data almost in real-time, officials said.
However, going through an intermediary is a step backward that could make cooperation in real-time tracking even less likely.
“Now you don’t know when the sought-after information will be passed — it could take hours, or a day,” said the official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The US, Japan and South Korea signed a separate deal, the Trilateral Information Sharing Arrangement (TISA) in 2014, in the face of North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats.
That limited the scope of shareable information to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, in contrast to GSOMIA, which allowed South Korea and Japan to ask each other for broader intelligence on North Korea.
Seoul will “actively” utilize TISA to ensure there is no information vacuum, South Korean Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Hyun-chong said on Friday last week.
A Japanese Self Defense Forces official said that though “a lot of people were surprised” by Seoul’s decision to scrap the pact, cooperation would continue at other levels.
‘STRONG CONCERN’
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was “disappointed,” an unusually strong word that has not been used in years, while the Pentagon expressed “strong concern.”
Kim said it was natural for the US to be disappointed, because it had hoped GSOMIA would be rolled over.
However, he dismissed South Korean media reports that Seoul did not give prior notice, saying at least nine telephone calls had been made between the two sides between last month and this month.
The flare-up in the history and trade dispute between its two biggest Asian allies has worried the US, which fears weakened security cooperation as China and Russia grow more assertive, and the North Korean threat is unabated.
TISA was a US-led initiative launched after a 2012 attempt to seal a two-way pact fell apart amid opposition in South Korea to military cooperation with Japan. Seoul eventually signed the GSOMIA pact in 2016, as the US stepped up pressure.
Washington has urged both sides to reach a “standstill agreement” to buy time for talks before Japan strips South Korea of its status of favored trading partner.
“It is a decision from which South Korea has a lot more to lose than to gain,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
“There could be greater pressure from the United States, such as to pay more defense costs and support its security initiative in the Middle East,” Shin said.
Additional reporting by Joyce Lee and Kiyoshi Takenaka
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