South Korean and Chinese ties with Japan have been troubled by what they see as repeated failures by leaders in Tokyo to properly atone for wartime atrocities, in particular for Seoul over “comfort women”, as the mostly Korean women forced into prostitution at Japanese military brothels are called.
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South Korea and Japan have agreed to hold their first bilateral summit in more than 3 years next Monday, on the sidelines of the trilateral meeting with China. Her comments during a speech at the Center for Strategic and worldwide Studies (CSIS) on October 15, while she was visiting the U.S., boxed her into holding a summit with Abe.
Now the resumption of the summitry, the core of the tripartite arrangement, indicates that cooperation among the three countries is finding its way out of the straits, returning to the right track and marching into a new phase, said Yang Houlan, secretary-general of the Seoul-based China-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat. It is not clear how sincerely Abe would deal with the issue at the bilateral summit.
The government officials confirmed the contents of a joint statement, which will be adopted after Sunday’s summit.
This issue was at the heart of the conflict between South Korea and Japan in 2012. Aside from the comfort women issue, Abe is also planning to bring up the issue of the indictment of Tatsuya Kato, former Seoul bureau chief for the Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, during the summit.
Following the high-ranking government meeting, Sugiyama, the only official to hold a press conference, said there was a need to thoroughly prepare for the summit which is taking place after about three-and-a-half years.
It had grown into a full-fledged institution featuring all-dimensional, multi-tiered and wide-ranging cooperation before its temperature took a nosedive in 2012 due to a string of Japanese moves on historical and territorial issues that angered both China and South Korea.
South Korea’s senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs, Kim Kyu-hyun says President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are expected to exchange “in-depth” views over pending issues between the two countries.
“So we are hoping that the Korea-Japan summit will be an opportunity to normalise the relationship”.
China, Japan and South Korea are close neighbors and leading players in Asia.
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Seoul and Tokyo share a long history of economic co-operation but the diplomatic row has affected their trade, which began falling since 2011, Kim Bong-man, head of regional co-operation at the Federation of Korean Industries said.
