SUMMARY
The first Philippines-United States-Japan trilateral summit will be held this week in Washington DC. Prior to that, the vice foreign ministers of the three countries met in Tokyo in March. In 2023, the heads of the national security councils and foreign ministers also held the triad meetings. Three factors encouraged such moves.
First, over the past two years, the importance of multilateral meetings in the Indo-Pacific region has been recognized. Minilateral is between multilateral (such as the United Nations and ASEAN) and bilateral. It refers to a framework for dialogue and cooperation among three or more countries that share common issues and interests. The US-Japan-Australia-India “QUAD” is also a type of minilateral.
Unlike alliances, which impose mutual defense obligati…