Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Seoul on Sunday for a tripartite summit with South Korea and China, amid an uncertain regional security environment fuelled by North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
At the first three-way summit in more than four years, Prime Minister Kishida, South Korean President Yun Seok-yeo and Chinese Premier Li Qiang are expected to agree to work together to tackle common challenges such as epidemics and an aging population.
As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, attention is focused on the three leaders’ policies toward North Korea, which is strengthening economic and military cooperation with China.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrives at Seoul Air Base on May 26, 2024. (Kyodo)
Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing are at odds over economic cooperation, and China has imposed a blanket ban on imports of Japanese seafood following the August 2023 start of releases of radioactive treated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Before leaving Tokyo, Foreign Minister Kishida told reporters he wanted to “revitalize the Japan-China-Korea process” through the summit.
In a recent interview with Kyodo News, the Prime Minister said, “I would like to have frank discussions and agree to promote future-oriented, practical cooperation on a wide range of issues,” and emphasized the importance of a “free and fair international economic order.”
A Japanese government official said the two leaders are likely to exchange views on how to proceed with negotiations on a trilateral free trade agreement, which stalled in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The three countries are supposed to hold a trilateral summit every year on a rotating basis, but the meetings have been occasionally suspended as relations between Japan and the two countries have cooled over historical and territorial issues.
Meanwhile, Kishida, Yun and Li are due to meet just days after China conducted two-day drills around Taiwan that Beijing said were a “severe punishment” for those seeking Taiwan’s “independence” and a “stern warning” against interference and provocation by “external forces”.
The drills came after Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, was inaugurated last Monday. Lai has been denounced by China as a separatist and is leader of the pro-independence ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
Officials said it was unclear whether Kishida, Yoon or Li would raise Taiwan-related issues. Taiwan and China have been governed separately since they were split in a civil war in 1949. China claims Taiwan is part of its territory and its “internal affairs.”
The two countries last held a trilateral summit in December 2019 in Chengdu, southwest China. The leaders at the time were Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July 2022, Yoon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who died in October 2023.
Foreign Minister Kishida held bilateral meetings with the South Korean president and the Chinese premier on the sidelines of the tripartite summit on Sunday. He also held his first formal bilateral meeting with Premier Li Keqiang, who will become China’s premier in March 2023.
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