SEOUL, South Korea — The top diplomats from South Korea, Japan and China met Sunday to discuss when to resume their leaders’ trilateral summit after a four-year hiatus and how to strengthen cooperation among the three Northeast Asian neighbors.
Closely linked economically and culturally with one another, the three countries together account for about 25% of the global gross domestic product. But efforts to boost trilateral cooperation have often hit a snag because of a mix of issues including historical disputes stemming from Japan’s wartime aggression and the strategic competition between China and the United States.
“Korea, Japan and China have the potential for massive cooperation. Our three countries are neighbors that can’t be separated from one another,” South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said at the start of the meeting in Busan, South Korea. “I hope we can strive together to hold the South Korea-Japan-China summit, which is at the apex of three-way cooperation, at an early date.”
Japan faces ‘nightmare scenario’ as growing Russia-China ties could threaten US-led order
- A Japan security report warns that the contest between the US and China-Russia will ‘accelerate’ as the latter seek a ‘non-democratic international order’
- While Japan must step up to secure its interests in the Indo-Pacific, Russia’s war in Ukraine and economic issues mean it can’t yet have a formal security alliance with China, an analyst says
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Garren Mulloy, a professor of international relations at Daito Bunka University and a specialist in military issues, said the NIDS report echoed a number of recent white papers and studies in Japan in recent years, but was significant because “it has a greater degree of clarity regarding the non-benevolent characteristics of China and Russia in the modern world”.
Much of the report was focused on efforts by both Moscow and Beijing to undermine and ultimately upset the current world order, Mulloy said, with this now identifiable as an “approach that is more coordinated than in the past to change the extant rules-based order”.
- ...It also stated Xi was showing China’s willingness to challenge the existing order by unilaterally claiming territory in the South China Sea and making similar claims elsewhere, not least against Taiwan.
- Similarly, Putin is pushing ahead with the war in Ukraine, while Russian naval and air units have been active close to Japanese territory, according to NIDS.
Most alarmingly for Tokyo, the report stated that Chinese and Russian warships and aircraft had carried out joint exercises in the Sea of Japan and also completed a joint circumnavigation of the main Japanese islands earlier in the year.
“Japan cannot allow China and Russia to create a non-democratic international order that tolerates unilateral changes to the status quo by force,” the NIDS study warned. “Japan must further strengthen the necessary defence capabilities to deter attempts to change the status quo by reliance on force.”
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“It demands that Japan take more proactive and independent actions to secure its national interests and maintain peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” the paper said.
- “This emerging alliance is not the absolute worst-case situation for Japan to find itself in, but it’s a part of it,” he said.
- “The very worst situation would be this alliance developing and the US withdrawing its forces from the Indo-Pacific region.”
- “It is clear that Russia is more aligned with China than China is to Russia because Moscow has far fewer options and much less power,” he added.
- In addition, the foreign ministers of Japan, China and South Korea met in Busan on Sunday, the first such in-person meetings for the three officials in recent years.
- While there was no immediate breakthrough on issues that have be-devilled bilateral and trilateral relations, the trio did agree to step up efforts to arrange a summit of their leaders in the near future.
“It was positive that Japan and China could find some common ground,” Mulloy said. “Japan can afford to let relations with Russia run down and reduce trade because it does not really have any impact here. But not having trade ties with China would have a far more serious impact on Japan.”
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