The top diplomats for China, South Korea and Japan are to meet in Tokyo this weekend for talks, Seoul said yesterday, as the neighbors move to bolster regional ties.
South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul and his Japanese and Chinese counterparts, Iwaya Takeshi and Wang Yi (王毅), are to “exchange comprehensive views ... for the development of trilateral cooperation,” Seoul’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The meeting in Tokyo on Saturday will be the 11th trilateral ministerial meeting, the statement said, with the last such meeting held in November 2023 in the South Korean port city of Busan.
Photo: AFP
The countries are also to hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the three-way summit, Seoul added.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK said the meeting was “expected to discuss concrete cooperation in a wide range of areas, such as people-to-people exchanges, economic cooperation and measures to combat the falling birthrate.”
The top diplomats were also set “to agree to coordinate the holding of a summit meeting of the three countries by the end of the year.”
NHK said Tokyo also aims to resolve some outstanding bilateral issues, “ such as China’s measures to suspend imports of Japanese fisheries products.”
In May last year, the leaders of the three countries held a rare summit in Seoul — the first such high level talks in five years — at which they agreed to deepen trade ties.
The three countries also reaffirmed their commitment to the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” — a reference to nuclear-armed North Korea.
Seoul and Tokyo typically take a stronger line against Pyongyang than does China, which remains one of North Korea’s most important allies and economic benefactors, despite leader Kim Jong-un’s recent moves to bolster ties with historic ally Russia.
Beijing has previously resisted condemning Pyongyang for its weapons tests, instead criticizing joint US-South Korea drills for raising tension.
Seoul and Washington accuse Pyongyang of sending thousands of North Korean soldiers to help Russia fight its war against Ukraine, in return for technical assistance from Moscow for its banned weapons programs.
Experts say any moves by Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing to ramp up trilateral cooperation and boost economic ties augers well for future agreements on more difficult topics like Kim’s nuclear weapons.
The announcement comes as South Korea awaits a Constitutional Court’s ruling on whether to remove President Yoon Suk-yeol from office over his botched martial law declaration in December.
While in office, Yoon has pushed for closer ties with Japan, attempting to bury the historical hatchet to present a united trilateral front with the US against North Korea’s growing military provocations.
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