SEOUL, Leaders of South Korea, China and Japan met in Seoul on Monday amid rising tensions over North Korea and Taiwan, with boosting economic ties among the key regional players topping the agenda for their trilateral summit.
At the summit, President Yoon Suk Yeol, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese Premier Li Qiang revived the trilateral dialogue that had been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and historical disputes among the Asian neighbors for over four years.
The ninth trilateral summit adopted a joint declaration on the implementation of “mutually beneficial” cooperation projects in six areas — economy and trade, sustainable development, public health, science and technology, disaster and safety management, and people-to-people exchanges.
The leaders pledged to work together to promote trade and investment to address global economic uncertainties.
“We will continue to work to ensure a global level playing field to foster a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, inc
lusive, and predictable trade and investment environment,” the joint declaration said.
“We also reaffirm our commitment to keeping markets open, strengthening supply chain cooperation and avoiding supply chain disruptions. We share the need to continue communication in the field of export control,” it added.
The leaders also pledged efforts to ensure the “transparent, smooth and effective” implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). It is a free trade agreement (FTA) among 15 Asia-Pacific countries, involving the three nations.
China is the largest trading partner of South Korea and Japan, and together, they make up about 25 percent of the global gross domestic product and 20 percent of global trade.
They also agreed to resume talks on a three-way FTA, which were suspended in November 2019 following 16 rounds of official negotiations after they began in 2012.
“We will continue discussions on speeding up negotiations for a trilateral FTA, aiming at realizing a free, fair, com
prehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial FTA with its own value,” the declaration said.
The summit took place just hours after North Korea notified Japan of its plan to launch its military satellite sometime before June 4, which Seoul and Tokyo condemn as a violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any launch using ballistic missile technology.
It also followed recent Chinese military drills around Taiwan after Lai Ching-te was sworn in as the new president.
While the summit did address security concerns, the joint declaration referred to geopolitical tensions in general terms without directly mentioning North Korea or Taiwan.
“We reaffirmed that maintaining peace, stability and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia serves our common interest and is our common responsibility,” the joint declaration read.
“We reiterated positions on regional peace and stability, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the abduction issue, respectively. We agree to continue
to make positive efforts for the political settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue,” it added.
Despite differing alignments and stances on various issues, the leaders committed to coordinating on regional and international matters from a broader perspective.
This year marks a rare instance of all three Northeast Asian neighbors serving together on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), with China as a permanent member and South Korea and Japan as non-permanent members.
“As important countries responsible for peace, stability and prosperity in Asia, we renew our determination to engage in close communication not only within the trilateral framework but also in the multilateral frameworks,” it said.
Experts expressed hope that the trilateral platform could play a role in managing conflicts at a tolerable level and preventing regional tensions from escalating as the three nations agreed to hold trilateral summits and ministerial meetings on a regular basis.
“Rather than sharpening fault lines between
the U.S. and China, the trilateral summit may serve as a platform for mitigating tensions between these competing global giants at odds,” Park Cheol-hee, chief of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, wrote in an opinion piece.
“Additionally, a meeting among the three leaders would send a signal to North Korea that Korea, Japan and China are willing to and can orchestrate efforts together to promote peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula in a broader regional context.”
Source: Yonhap News Agency