Trilateral Talks

From left: Fumio Kishida, minister for foreign affairs of Japan; Yun Byung-se, minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Korea; and Wang Yi, foreign minister of the People's Republic of China at the Hotel Shilla in Seoul on March 21.
From left: Fumio Kishida, minister for foreign affairs of Japan; Yun Byung-se, minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Korea; and Wang Yi, foreign minister of the People's Republic of China at the Hotel Shilla in Seoul on March 21.

 

For the first time in nearly three years, the foreign ministers of South Korea, China, and Japan met for trilateral talks in order to solve the intricate diplomatic and security problems between the three countries. However, they failed to make concrete progress and come up with an action plan for the improvement of relations. The meeting only confirmed that it will be difficult to restore relations trilaterally.

The foreign ministers of the three countries agreed in the meeting to make efforts to hold a three-way summit between the leaders of their countries as soon as possible and at their convenience. Taking a look at only the outline of the agreement, the summit looks like it will be held soon. However, it won’t. They failed to come to an accord about a concrete schedule or conditions. The Korean government demanded that Japan change its stance on the Japanese military's enforced sex slavery of Korean women during wartime as a precondition for talks, while the Chinese government demanded that Japan change its stance on the territorial dispute over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, and controversy over the perception of history. Therefore, it is unclear whether or not it will be possible to hold a three-way summit within this year. Ultimately, the stance on the Japanese military's sex slavery practices, historical perception, and territorial disputes in the Abe Statement, which will be announced by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in August, will decide whether or not the summit talks will be held. 

While Korea and China have reservations about the “conditional” summit talks, Japan is urging for a bilateral or trilateral summit as soon as possible. It shows that the Japanese want to actively deal with nuclear weapons in North Korea by strengthening cooperation in security between Korea, the U.S., and Japan, and to expand their economic territory by pushing ahead with the conclusion of the FTA with Korea and China. Also, when the THAAD deployment in Korea becomes a reality, there is highly likely to be a military confrontation between Korea, the U.S., and Japan versus North Korea, China, and Russia. As it will be even more difficult to improve relations with China in that case, it is necessary to take a preemptive move on security issues through the summit talks. 

However, China made clear in this foreign ministers' meeting that whether or not to hold the trilateral talks will be depend on Japan’s stance. In a joint press conference on the same day, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, “This year marks the 70th anniversary to win the war against fascism. Even though it has been 70 years now, the history issues between the three countries are still ongoing. It has already become common realizations of the three nations to look straight at history and move forward to the future. Through our joint efforts, we should put it into practice and implement it in the development of the relations and cooperation between the three nations.” He expressed his viewpoint that there will be no trilateral summit talks if Japan does not show a change in its attitude on the distortions of history.   

In a photo shoot right before the meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida didn’t hold hands, and kept a fixed expression on their faces. These gestures show how strained the two nations' relations are right now. 

The three nations formed a consensus to make efforts together to make real progress for the denuclearization of North Korea. However, they failed to agree on holding the time and conditions for six-party talks. Even though Korea and Japan are supposed to induce North Korea in the six-party talks by leveraging China, they showed their limit of not being able to put strong pressure on China.

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