This week, Japan, South Korea and China held their first trilateral leaders’ summit in almost five years. As always, the attendees – Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and the host, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol – found common ground on economic issues, expressed piety over political concerns and pledged human exchanges to human beings to facilitate exchanges between people. future cooperation.
Ultimately, the geopolitics of the triangle – increased tensions between the United States and China and the fact that Japan and South Korea are allies of Washington – have precluded any substantive agreement. Instead, the meeting served primarily as a confidence-building measure that could restore regularity to their trilateral summits and lay a foundation for real progress in the future. That progress is desperately needed.
The first trilateral summit took place in 1999 and in 2008 a regular process was launched to discuss and promote regional cooperation. The concept makes intuitive sense because the three countries share a common culture, are neighbors and face similar security challenges. And while North Korea poses different threats to each country, they all agree on the need for stability.
