The leaders of South Korea and Japan on Monday sought to restore economic cooperation with China, their largest trading partner, after years of strained relations, but their three-way talks were overshadowed by increased tensions between China and the United States, Seoul and Tokyo. important military ally.
The trilateral meeting – bringing together South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Premier Li Qiang, China’s second-highest official – was the first in four and a half years.
Discussions focused primarily on areas where common ground could more easily be found, such as protecting supply chains, promoting trade and cooperating to address the challenges of aging populations and emerging infectious diseases. . Leaders have tiptoed around thorny regional security issues, such as those of Taiwan and North Korea.
“The three nations agreed to expand practical cooperation so that their people can feel the benefits,” Yoon said at a joint news conference with Kishida and Li, announcing 2025 and 2026 as “years of cultural exchange”. among the three nations.
But North Korea helped highlight major differences between the three neighbors on Monday. Hours before their meeting began, he announced a plan to put a military spy satellite into orbit. After the summit ended, it launched a long-range rocket carrying the satellite from its space station in northwest North Korea.
United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibit the country from launching such rockets because they use the same technology needed to build intercontinental ballistic missiles.
North Korea’s increasingly aggressive military posture has compounded the concerns of South Korea and Japan. The North has also expanded its arms trade with Russia, in defiance of U.N. sanctions, by shipping artillery shells and missiles for Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, according to U.S. and South officials. -Korean. In return, Moscow is accused of providing energy and technological assistance that could help North Korea’s missile program.
South Korea and Japan have called on China, North Korea’s biggest benefactor, to use its economic influence to help curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. So far, Beijing has been reluctant to use this leverage, viewing North Korea as a buffer against the US military on the Korean Peninsula.
On Monday, Mr. Yoon and Mr. Kishida vehemently criticized North Korea’s satellite launch plan. But Mr. Li, who serves under Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, stopped short of denouncing North Korea, calling only on all parties to “exercise restraint” and work toward a “political settlement.”
As the news conference concluded in Seoul, 20 South Korean warplanes conducted an airstrike drill south of the inter-Korean border to warn of “immediate and strong” retaliation against the North Korean provocation.
China, Japan and South Korea agreed to hold a trilateral meeting every year starting in 2008 to discuss regional cooperation. But that plan has often been disrupted by diplomatic wrangling and, more recently, the pandemic. The meeting held Monday in Seoul was the ninth such meeting and the first since December 2019.
During these years apart, strategic competition between Washington and Beijing has intensified, also deteriorating relations between China and the two US allies. China has flexed its military might and expanded its territorial ambitions in the South and East China seas, while the United States, Japan and South Korea have increased joint military exercises and strengthened missile defense and other security cooperation.
China’s ties with the two U.S. allies have become so strained in recent years that analysts have observed that simply reviving the trilateral summit was a success. But common interests forced Beijing and its two neighbors to relaunch it.
Mr. Yoon said on Monday that the three nations had agreed to hold regular summit meetings.
The East Asian neighbors, which together account for more than a fifth of global economic output, need regional stability and cooperation, particularly in supply chains, to recover from the post- pandemic. Although Japan and South Korea consider the United States their most important ally, hosting 80,000 American troops in their territories together, their leaders have faced pressure at home from companies vying for improve access to China.
China is betting it can woo Japan and South Korea by offering them better access to its market and diminishing some of Washington’s influence. To this end, China agreed to restart negotiations on a free trade agreement between the three neighbors, emphasizing greater economic cooperation as a way to maintain regional peace and stability.
This has made the United States an intrusive actor in Asian affairs that pressures Japan and South Korea to form a bloc to control China’s development. Washington has imposed a wall of restrictions to prevent Beijing from accessing the latest semiconductors and is urging allies like Japan and South Korea to cooperate.
On Monday, Mr. Li indirectly criticized Washington by calling for a “multipolar” world order and opposing any attempts to create “blocs” and “politicization” of trade issues.
In recent years, Japan and South Korea have grown closer, improving relations long strained by historical disputes. They also expanded trilateral military cooperation with the United States to deter North Korea and China.
Japan and South Korea have urged China to address its growing difficulties in doing business in China. Mr. Kishida called for the rapid release of Japanese nationals detained in China on suspicion of espionage.
During bilateral talks on Sunday, South Korea and China agreed to open new channels to discuss security issues and cooperation in supply chains, said Kim Tae-hyo, deputy director of national security. at Mr. Yoon’s office.
Mr. Yoon’s policy of aligning South Korea more closely with the United States has been accompanied by a sharp decline in South Korean exports to China. The United States replaced China as South Korea’s top export market this year for the first time in two decades, government data showed.
David Pierson reports contributed.
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