The sixth China-Japan-South Korea leaders’ meeting started in the South Korean capital of Seoul on Sunday, resuming the trilateral cooperation mechanism after a three-and-a-half-year suspension.
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South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed Monday to speed up talks on Japan’s wartime sex slavery of Korean women to reach an agreement on the issue at an earliest possible date, Park’s office said.
It was their first ever one-on-one meeting with Park having previously rebuffed all summit proposals, arguing that Tokyo had yet to properly atone for its wartime past and 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.
Speaking to reporters in Seoul, Abe confirmed the deal on the sensitive issue, citing the significance of this year in Seoul-Tokyo ties.
The long-running spat between Seoul and Tokyo, crucial USA allies, has been especially worrying for Washington as it looks to counter China’s rise and North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear bombs.
“It is regrettable that even among our three very close countries, there can not be a deeper understanding among us”.
“That’s the biggest meaning of this trilateral summit”, said Bong Youngshik, a senior researcher at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
Since taking office in early 2013, Park had resisted formal talks with Abe until Monday’s meeting at her presidential Blue House in Seoul, though U.S. President Barack Obama brought them together in an informal meeting in The Hague, Netherlands, last November.
“If not, then they will certainly stall”, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a seminar ahead of the meeting, urging Japan to sincerely reflect upon its past mistakes and make “a clean break from its disgraceful history so that it can work with China and South Korea to get trilateral cooperation back on track”.
A joint statement issued after the meeting said the sides agreed to try to resolve history-related issues and improve ties by “facing history squarely and advancing toward the future”.
Park and Li agreed Saturday to work toward ratifying by the end of the year a bilateral free trade agreement that their legislatures have yet to approve.
China always sticks to realizing denuclearization of the peninsula, maintaining peace and stability, and resolving the issue through dialogue and consultation, Chinese President Xi Jinping expounded China’s stance when Park visited Beijing in September.
North Korea has recently hinted that it may conduct another nuclear test and vowed to launch a series of satellites as part of its space development program. They say the Asian leaders instead may seek common ground on economic issues, such as how to boost trade ties as their countries face economic woes at home. China is North Korea’s only major ally and biggest aid benefactor, but has shown signs that it’s increasingly fed up with the North’s repeated provocations. The other two members are the United States and Russian Federation.
South Korea and Japan together host about 80,000 USA troops, the core of America’s military presence in the Asia-Pacific.
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Park Yong-maan, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the country’s largest private economic organization, predicted the FTA, as well as the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), will lead to greater opportunities down the line.
