A three-party summit between South Korea, Japan and China was held on May 26-27, 2024. On the first day of the event, South Korea’s President Yoon Seok-yeol held separate bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Premier of the State Council of China Li Qiang, followed by a trilateral meeting, the announcement of a joint statement, and, on the next day, a business forum.
History of preparations for the summit
The first South Korea-China-Japan summit was held in Fukuoka, Japan, in December 2008. It was attended by the then leaders of the three countries, Lee Myung-bak, Wen Jiabao and Taro Aso. The most recent summit, until this year’s, was held in late 2019 in the city of Chengdu in southwestern China. The summits were then suspended, both due to the coronavirus pandemic and because of the deteriorating relations between Seoul and Tokyo over the issue of compensation for Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. That was not the first such interruption -since 2012 there have been 3 years in which no summits were held due to disputes over Japan’s territorial claims to the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands.
The talks on restarting the summits gained momentum amid a sharp warming of relations between Seoul and Tokyo, after South Korea announced in March 2023 that it would pay compensation to Korean victims on its own initiative without requiring contributions from Japanese companies.
On August 21, 2023, a spokesman for the South Korean Foreign Ministry told reporters that the three countries were in agreement on the need to resume the work of the joint negotiation platform as soon as possible. This position was voiced during talks between the Chinese and South Korean foreign ministers on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Indonesia in July 2023, and amid Beijing’s dissatisfaction with the outcome of the South Korea-US-Japan summit at Camp David.
On August 30, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said, on condition of anonymity, that South Korea is “liaising with the relevant countries” to resume discussions about the summit. The Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun also reported that the three countries were discussing the possibility of holding a summit meeting in Seoul in late September 2023.
On September 7, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol held a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Yoon noted that “North Korea’s escalating nuclear missile threats” will only strengthen the trilateral security cooperation between South Korea, the US and Japan, and called on China to “conscientiously fulfil its constructive role” in mitigating and resolving the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula. On the other hand, the South Korean president said that the North Korea issue should not pose an obstacle to the development of relations between Beijing and Seoul, and expressed a wish to develop high-level bilateral dialog and cooperate in the holding of a trilateral summit between the South Korean, Chinese and Japanese leaders as soon as possible.
At the same summit Yoon Suk-yeol said Seoul plans to work with China and Japan to restore dialog between the three countries, including by arranging trilateral summits.
On September 11, 2023, Cho Tae-yong, Director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, said in an interview with Channel A television that Seoul will make efforts to arrange a visit to South Korea by Chinese President Xi Jinping. He recalled that the previous year, during the G20 summit in Bali, Xi Jinping had expressed his intention to visit South Korea as the COVID-19 pandemic situation stabilized. It was considered highly likely that the bilateral summit would be preceded by a trilateral South Korea-China-Japan summit.
On September 12, during a Cabinet meeting held the day after his return from a six-day trip to Indonesia and India, where he attended multilateral ASEAN and G20 summits, President Yoon said that “During this trip, Premier Li Qiang and Prime Minister Kishida stated their support for the resumption of the South Korea-China-Japan summit.”
On September 25, South Korea, China and Japan held a meeting at the vice-ministerial level and agreed to resume their long-postponed trilateral summit at the “earliest convenient time.” On October 12, 2023. China’s ambassador to South Korea, Xing Haiming, called for stronger cooperation between South Korea, China and Japan to address what he called unilateralism and a Cold War ideology. “The international political situation has changed significantly in recent years, and cooperation between South Korea, China and Japan is facing new challenges with the prevalence of unilateralism, power politics and a Cold War ideology…We must read the trend of the times and gather our historical wisdom while continuing with our strategic commitment.” Kim Gunn, special representative for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula, echoed Xing’s view on the need to step up trilateral cooperation, but his focus was on North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. On October 19, 2023 the Japanese news agency Kyodo Tsushin reported that Seoul has proposed holding talks between the South Korean, Chinese and Japanese Foreign Ministers, in late November in Busan. These talks were held on November 25-26.
The outcome of the trilateral talks was an agreement to step up preparations for holding a summit between the three heads of state in the near future. Bilateral talks have also focused on regional issues, including North Korea’s launch of a military reconnaissance satellite, the strengthening of relations between Russia and North Korea, the termination of the September 19, 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, and the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors to their homeland. The ministers noted that the trilateral summits are “vital” to maintaining mutually beneficial cooperation between Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo, and as South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin pointed out, the talks were “very significant in the sense that they aim to restore the stalled trilateral cooperation and normalize it.”
However, “due to scheduling problems” the ministerial meeting with President Yoon did not take place, and Wang Yi left the country rather hastily, citing his busy schedule, and thus the three ministers did not issue a joint statement or hold a press conference.
Conservative media in South Korea described the meeting as a “partial success”, claiming that China “should act more proactively to… realize the Yoon-Xi summit” while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was criticized for failing to give a precise answer on the specific route towards the summit and for not attending the joint press conference at the end.
On April 4, 2024, a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the summit between South Korea, China and Japan could be held this year if there are no “serious obstacles.” On the same day, Japanese media reported that the summit would take place in May and that the agenda would include issues relating to economic cooperation and personnel exchanges.
Experts views on the upcoming event and the South Korean perspective on the event as a whole.
The discussions on the summit have been under way for a long time, as have been the attempts to organize a visit to Seoul by the Chinese President. This is due to several factors. First, despite its active rapprochement with Washington and Tokyo and its attempts to reduce its economic dependence on trade with China, Seoul has been careful not to become overly involved in US anti-China initiatives. Although South Korea and China occasionally clash violently over the Taiwan issue or US missile defense in South Korea, Seoul has largely refrained from anti-China rhetoric, and sentiment of this kind tends to comes from society rather than the government.
Observers have noted that the previous South Korean administration, according to its officials, sought to maintain a balance between the US and China (although the bias toward America was still very large) and despite the difference in political rhetoric, the current administration is largely continuing with this policy, and such events as the planned the summit play a key role in achieving this balance. These events show that if Seoul is moving away from China, which remains South Korea’s largest trading partner, then at least it is doing so more slowly than Washington would like. In addition, by aiming to hold the trilateral summit on its territory, Seoul is positioning itself as a center of regional interaction, continuing its policy of creating a kind of unified space free from the “strategic triangles” that have emerged in the current era of global turbulence. The confrontation between South Korea, the United States and Japan on the one hand, and North Korea, China and Russia on the other, has diminished Seoul’s “diplomatic ambiguity” and reduced its room for maneuver in its relations with China and Russia, and the summit may somewhat expand this freedom. Finally, conservative forces in South Korea and Japan have not given up hope of using China as an instrument of pressure on North Korea, and are hoping to use the summit platform, at the very least, to “express their concerns”.
It has been claimed that South Korea is in talks with China and Japan to try to include in a joint statement a paragraph calling for a resolution to the issue of the abduction and detention of South Korean citizens in North Korea. There is some basis for this – in 2019, the three countries expressed hope that Japan and North Korea would discuss the abduction issue.
According to government records, there are six South Koreans detained in North Korea, including three missionaries – Kim Jong-wook, Choi Jong-gil and Kim Kuk-ki – whose whereabouts and fate are unknown. In addition, of the some 3,835 people who have been abducted by North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War, 516 South Koreans have yet to return home. It is also estimated that at least 60,000 POWs detained in North Korea have not returned home.
However, while a number of Japanese nationals can be said to have been “abducted”, the situation of South Korea’s spy pastors is quite different – they were caught in the act, as the present author discussed in a recent article.
In this context, it is very interesting to note how, in the run-up to the visit, it has been assessed by conservative media and pundits. In an editorial the conservative newspaper Korea Herald points out that South Korea has restored its relations with Japan thanks to the decision of the Yun Seok-yeol government to compensate victims of forced labor from the Japanese colonial era on its own initiative, without the involvement of Japanese firms. But there has been no breakthrough in relations between Seoul and Beijing: China is “is shaking the existing international order by pursuing hegemonic policies that clash with policies of South Korea and Japan.” As a result, the chances of a constructive summit are slim.
Kang Jun-yong, a professor of Chinese Studies at the Graduate School of International Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, notes that China’s desire to participate in the upcoming trilateral summit between South Korea and Japan “is based on strategic motives, which are aimed at safeguarding its regional interests amid escalating pressure on Beijing from the U.S.-led alliance with Seoul and Tokyo.”Beijing has been making efforts to persuade Seoul to distance itself from Washington as it perceives Korea as the weakest link in the U.S. network of alliances.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, points out that if South Korea and Japan were represented by their leaders, China was represented by its Prime Minister, and not by President Xi Jinping. He adds, “I think the meeting of the three countries’ leaders is meaningful, but it’s unlikely to create a turning point that will dramatically change the situation on the Korean Peninsula.” In general, views on the summit were divided. Some commentators considered there was a good chance that it would be a constructive event enabling the parties to discuss pressing issues related to the preservation of regional unity. Others were more pessimistic, arguing that those areas where the parties’ interests clearly diverge, such as security matters or the North Korean issue, would not be discussed and that the talks would be limited to ceremonial matters, making the summit more of a symbolic event than a real forum for discussion.
The conservative-leaning Korea Times, which tends to oppose Yoon’s government, writes that “South Korea needs to fortify relations with the US and Japan while soliciting cooperation with China,” adding that “China has been urged to discard its hitherto stance of clandestinely backing North Korea’s bids toward military buildup and play a constructive and more proactive role in containing the North’s nuclear development.”
Having looked at the expectations for the summit, we will consider its results in our next article.
Konstantin Asmolov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Leading Research Fellow of the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online journal “New Eastern Outlook”