Article By Hyonhee Shin
SEOUL (Reuters) – The meeting of the foreign ministers of South Korea, China, and Japan in South Korea on Sunday marks an attempt to revive cooperation between the Asian neighbors and set the stage for a trilateral summit.
While China and the United States have been working to improve their relationship, with a recent summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, Beijing is wary of the strengthening partnership between Washington and its key regional allies.
The three countries had agreed to hold summits every year from 2008 onwards to bolster diplomatic and economic exchanges, but this plan was hampered by bilateral disputes and the COVID-19 pandemic. Their last trilateral leaders’ meeting took place in 2019.
The three foreign ministers are coming together in the port city of Busan, marking the first such meeting since 2019. In September, senior officials from all three countries agreed to arrange a trilateral summit at the “earliest convenient time”.
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin met separately on Sunday morning with his Japanese counterpart Yoko Kamikawa and China’s Wang Yi.
Before the meeting, Park and Kamikawa criticized North Korea’s launch of its first spy satellite last week and agreed to enhance responses to arms transactions between Pyongyang and Moscow, as stated by Seoul’s foreign ministry.
Despite the cooperative tone, Kamikawa expressed deep regret over a South Korean court’s order for Japan to compensate a group of women forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels and requested the South Korean government to take appropriate measures, according to Japan’s Kyodo news agency.
Prior to this, Kamikawa had met with Wang and expressed hopes for security dialogue between Tokyo and Beijing in the near future. Wang, on the other hand, emphasized the need for both sides to ensure they do not pose a threat to each other and respect each other’s legitimate concerns, according to China’s foreign ministry.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have taken steps to mend ties frayed by historical issues and trade disputes, culminating in a historic trilateral summit in August with Biden.
Wang had previously warned in July that U.S. efforts to strengthen relations with Seoul and Tokyo could escalate regional tension and confrontation.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul; Additional reporting by Sam Nussey in Tokyo; Editing by William Mallard)
