South Korea, China, Japan top diplomats seek to boost trilateral cooperation

South Korea’s, China’s, and Japan’s foreign ministers will meet in South Korea on Sunday, hoping to rekindle cooperation among the Asian neighbours and pave the way for a trilateral summit.

While China and the US have been mending strained ties, including a summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden this month, Beijing is concerned that Washington and its major regional allies are expanding their three-way partnership.

Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul had agreed to convene annual summits beginning in 2008 to strengthen diplomatic and economic ties, but the plan has been stymied by bilateral disputes and the COVID-19 pandemic. Their most recent trilateral leaders’ summit took place in 2019.

The three top diplomats are meeting in Busan, South Korea, for the first time since 2019. Senior officials from the three countries decided to have a trilateral summit at the “earliest convenient time” in September.

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin met separately with his Japanese counterpart, Yoko Kamikawa, and China’s Wang Yi on Sunday morning.

Park and Kamikawa blasted North Korea’s launch of its first spy satellite last week and vowed to strengthen reactions to arms transfers between Pyongyang and Moscow, according to a statement from Seoul’s foreign ministry.

Marring the cooperative tone, Kamikawa called an order by a South Korean court for Japan to compensate a group of women forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels “extremely regrettable” and requested the South Korean government take appropriate measures, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.

On Saturday, Kamikawa met Wang and expressed hopes for security dialogue between Tokyo and Beijing “in the near future”. Wang highlighted the need for both sides to ensure that they “do not pose a threat to one another” 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 history and trade feuds, and held a historic trilateral summit in August with Biden.

Wang warned in July that US efforts to strengthen relations with Seoul and Tokyo could raise regional tension and confrontation.

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