The first Japan-China-South Korea trilateral summit since 2019 may not conclude with a raft of concrete deliverables, but just holding the meeting on Monday will be an accomplishment in its own right.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to travel to Seoul, the host of the summit, where he will meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Chinese Premier Li Qiang as the three neighbors look to renewed trilateral talks to help promote communication and manage tensions amid growing frictions over economic and security issues.
“That the trio is meeting at all is good,” said Robert Ward, the Japan chair at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank. While the three countries are geographically close, meetings such as this “are comparatively rare.”