Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) arrived in Seoul yesterday for a three-way summit with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aimed at repairing relations strained from historical and territorial issues.
A day before the summit, Park and Li were to hold a separate meeting yesterday with a likely focus on trade issues between two of the region’s closest economic partners. Li might also seek some sort of assurance from Park that Seoul, a key US ally, would keep a neutral stance over the recent flare-up between Washington and Beijing over the US Navy’s freedom of navigation operations in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, analysts said.
Today’s trilateral summit is the first since 2012. The meetings were shelved after Japan’s ties with its two neighbors deteriorated over disputes stemming from its wartime aggression and territorial claims.
Photo: Reuters
Park is to meet Abe tomorrow in the first formal bilateral summit in more than three years.
Japan and China have been gradually resuming exchanges following 2012 tensions over the control of disputed islands in the East China Sea. The rift began healing after diplomats agreed to restart contacts November last year, when Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) briefly met and shook hands with Abe.
Park has met Xi six times since she took office in 2013, in efforts to further strengthen ties with China, South Korea’s largest trade partner.
However, Seoul’s ties with Tokyo have been persistently icy after Abe came to power in December 2012, as the nations struggled to settle disputes stemming from Japan’s brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula in the early 20th century. China has similar gripes with Japan.
The US wants Japan and South Korea, important allies in the region, to be on better terms to counter China’s growing influence, including in the South China Sea, and also to strengthen security cooperation against North Korea.
The US Navy on Monday sent a warship in its most direct challenge yet to China’s artificial island building that has upset other claimants in the South China Sea, including the Philippines, a close US ally.
Taiwan also has claims in the region.
While it is unlikely that anything exceptional would transpire from the Seoul meetings, it is meaningful that the neighbors have taken the first step toward overcoming their bitter differences by restoring an environment for higher-level dialogue, said Bong Youngshik, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Asian Institute for Policy Studies.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number