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Opinion
‘Triple trilateralism’ on Korean peninsula: force for peace or conflict?
The peninsula is characterised by three overlapping triangles whose interaction will shape Northeast Asia’s future and broader strategic stability
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Hao Nan is a Susan Strange Associate Fellow with the Helsinki Geoeconomics Society, and a Nuclear Futures Fellow with Ploughshares Fund & Horizon 2045.
The Korean peninsula has snapped back into global focus. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea is expected to bring the leaders of the US and China together for their first in-person meeting since US President Donald Trump’s second term began. Meanwhile, Russia-allied North Korea seeks US recognition of its status as a nuclear state and direct talks with Trump.
This points to a structural shift in Northeast Asia’s security architecture. Rather than a simple US-China binary or a rigid two-camp confrontation, there are three overlapping triangles: the US-Japan-South Korea deterrence partnership, China-Japan-South Korea functional cooperation and a tightening China-Russia-North Korea counter-alignment. Their interaction makes the peninsula both a friction point and potential stabiliser.
The last inclusive regional security framework, the Six-Party Talks, collapsed in the late 2000s, leaving a vacuum that flexible trilaterals have increasingly filled. “Triple trilateralism” has since emerged as a more adaptive structure that maps onto interlocked security, economic and ideological concerns.
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