Protesters wearing masks depicting South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hold up placards during an anti-Japanese rally in Seoul yesterday.
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang travels to Seoul this weekend for an official visit to South Korea and the first leaders’ meeting of the top three economies in East Asia after a three-year hiatus.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Seoul on Saturday for a three-way summit with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aimed at repairing relations strained from historical and territorial issues. In 2012, the China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit was suspended after Tokyo attempted to unilaterally appropriate the Diaoyu islands (known as Senkaku Islands in Japan).
Abe’s insistence on paying homage at the shrine, in person or by sending offerings, has angered China and South Korea.
Under the deal, the two will strengthen policy cooperation especially in pushing for the so-called “Eurasia Initiative” of South Korea and the “One Belt and One Road Initiative” of China, the officials said.
Wariness and resentment will likely persist, South Korea’s biggest daily, the Chosun Ilbo, said this week in an editorial titled “Japan Needs Keeping in Close Check”.
“We have to make sure that despite the difficulties and tensions, that all three countries will continue to pursue issues of common concern not just this year, next year during President Park’s term, but for, one would say, in perpetuity”, says Moon. Koreans who suffered Japan’s brutal colonial rule from 1910-1945 are very sensitive to the possibility of Japanese boots on Korean soil again. Her comments during a speech at the Center for Strategic and global Studies (CSIS) on October 15, while she was visiting the United States, boxed her into holding a summit with Abe.
The bilateral meeting between Park and Li, China’s No. 2 leader in charge of economy, was focused on deepening economic cooperation between the two nations. “This is the first summit in about three-and-a-half years, and we are looking forward to trilateral cooperation returning to normal and the more proactive pursuit of collaborative projects in various areas”, said Kim Kyou-hyun.
Students in South Korea are now being taught about the women that were taken by Japanese soldiers to be used as sex slaves for the military during the occupation of Korea, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Protecting the freedom of navigation and flights as well as the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) is important to peace and stability in the region”, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Noh Kwang-il said in a statement.
As host, Park must balance her country’s need for good economic and diplomatic ties with neighbor Japan and the deep mistrust many Koreans feel for Abe, who is seen as persistently seeking to whitewash Japan’s wartime atrocities.
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South Korea’s 60-year military alliance with the U.S. remains the cornerstone of its national defence, and it does not want to become a pawn in the battle between China and the USA for influence in Asia.
