South Korea Hosts Trilateral Meeting with China and Japan to Ease Beijing’s Concerns
SEOUL, Sept 26 (Reuters) – South Korea played host to a rare trilateral meeting on Tuesday, welcoming senior diplomats from China and Japan. The meeting is seen as an effort to assuage Beijing’s concerns over the tightening cooperation between the two U.S. allies and Washington.
This meeting is aimed at setting the stage for the resumption of three-way summits among the leaders of South Korea, China, and Japan. The last such talks took place in 2019 but were suspended due to legal, diplomatic, and trade disputes between Seoul and Tokyo, stemming from Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
Since then, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have taken steps to mend ties. In August, they held a historic trilateral summit with U.S. President Joe Biden, during which they pledged to enhance cooperation on defense and economic security.
A senior South Korean government official, speaking anonymously, acknowledged that China has been proactive in seeking trilateral cooperation and arranging meetings. This is likely due to the souring of relations between Seoul and Beijing in 2017 over the deployment of a U.S. THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea.
“I’m sure there should be some discomfort on their side regarding our increasingly close trilateral security partnerships with the United States and Japan,” the official said. “There seems to be a view there that they need to properly manage bilateral ties with us, as they saw how their THAAD responses backfired and fueled anti-China sentiment to serious levels.”
According to Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, China is likely to leverage trilateral trade ties to counterbalance the U.S. friend-shoring strategy. Furthermore, Beijing will seek to promote people-to-people exchanges and enhance communication and dialogue with Seoul and Tokyo on security and defense matters.
Both Japan and South Korea have an interest in maintaining a stable security relationship with China and receiving its assistance in halting North Korea’s extensive nuclear development program, Zhao added. He believes that these shared interests provide opportunities for strategic communication, confidence-building, and measures to prevent crises.
While the trilateral summits have typically involved China’s premier, South Korea is pushing for a separate visit by President Xi Jinping. South Korea, as this year’s host for the three-way meetings, proposed a trilateral summit in December during the talks on Tuesday, according to Japanese broadcaster TBS.
The meeting, which included South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Chung Byung-won, Japanese Senior Deputy Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi, and China’s assistant minister of foreign affairs, Nong Rong, underscores the significance of trilateral cooperation in the region.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin emphasized the close proximity and important cooperative partnership between China, Japan, and South Korea, stating that strengthening trilateral cooperation serves their common interests.
Reported by Josh Smith and Hyonhee Shin in Seoul, with additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing. Written by Josh Smith. Edited by Gerry Doyle.
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