South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin (C) poses for a photo with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa before their trilateral talks in the southeastern port city of Busan on Nov. 26, 2023. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
BUSAN, Nov. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea, China and Japan agreed Sunday to accelerate preparations to resume the long-stalled summit among the leaders of the three countries at an “earliest, mutually convenient” time, Seoul’s Foreign Minister Park Jin said.
Park made the remarks after holding the tripartite talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in Busan, the first such meeting to take place after a four-year hiatus.
“We, the three ministers, reaffirmed the agreement to hold the summit, the pinnacle of the trilateral cooperation system, at the earliest, mutually convenient time and agreed to accelerate the preparations necessary for the summit,” Park told reporters at a press session after the talks.
“We will continue efforts to make sure that the holding of a summit will materialize in the near future,” he added.
Park said the three countries shared the understanding that resuming the three-way summit is “vital to the restoration and normalization of the tripartite cooperation.”
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin (3rd from L), along with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (4th from L) and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (2nd from L), enters the room for trilateral talks in the southeastern port city of Busan on Nov. 26, 2023. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
The trilateral summit has not been held since the last one took place in China’s southwestern city of Chengdu in December 2019.
The summit has been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and a deterioration in Seoul-Tokyo relations over the issue of compensating Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Talks of reviving the summit gathered momentum amid a dramatic warming of the Seoul-Tokyo relations after South Korea said in March it will compensate the Korean victims on its own without asking for contributions from Japanese companies.
South Korea has been pushing to hold the summit within this year, but the chance of making that happen appears slim at this stage given the short period of time left until the year-end, a senior foreign ministry official said
“You could think of it as that we are looking at early next year and preparing for it,” the official said.
Noting on the need to “institutionalize trilateral cooperation into a sustainable system,” Park said he highlighted the need to explore substantive cooperation projects that “can be felt by the peoples of the three nations.”
Such projects could include people-to-people exchanges, or be related to climate change, health, science technologies and digital transition, the ministry official said.
On North Korea’s launch this week of a military spy satellite, Park emphasized that such provocations, along with ballistic missile launches, pose serious threats to peace and stability in the region.
The three sides agreed to continue communications at all levels to help resolve the North Korean issues, Park said.
At the talks, Park also asked for support from Japan and China for South Korea’s bid to host the 2030 World Expo in Busan.
Wang pointed out that the three-way cooperation “has never been stopped” even during the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying there is “huge potential, strong demand and a wide range of resources.”
“China, Korea and Japan must play a positive role in regional and global development with a more honest attitude,” Wang said at the start of the talks.
Kamikawa said the trilateral cooperation has become increasingly important as it “greatly contributes to peace and prosperity” even at a time of many unprecedented challenges, such as climate change and artificial intelligence.
“Whether we can provide resilience with the power to overcome these challenges depends on how we can collaborate with ideas that are not tied to existing methods,” she said.
“I would like to return to this starting point and make today’s talks an opportunity to restart cooperation between the three countries,” she added.
Ahead of the trilateral talks, Park had separate bilateral talks with Kamikawa and Wang.
Park hosted a luncheon meeting for Wang and Kamikawa before the trilateral talks. The three took a stroll together around the venue in Busan’s popular Haeundae, where the series of talks took place, according to the senior official.
Wang and Kamikawa arrived in Busan on Saturday.
It marks the first visit by Kamikawa since she took office in September. Wang last visited South Korea in September 2021.
(Yonhap)
