With tensions in Northeast Asia escalating into dangerous territory, the leaders of Japan, China and South Korea on Monday sought to clear the air and chart a new path forward in their first three-way summit since 2019.
In a highly anticipated meeting in Seoul, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol agreed to cooperate in a wide range of fields, including the economy and trade, while pledging to regularize diplomatic talks and resume negotiations on a free trade agreement.
In a joint statement, the three sides pledged future-oriented cooperation, vowing to work more closely together in areas ranging from the economy to sustainable development, health issues, science and technology, disaster and safety management, as well as people-to-people exchanges.
They also agreed to restore the trilateral framework to hold talks on a regular basis, with the next such meeting set to be held next year in Japan.
Although Monday’s summit didn’t result in any breakthroughs on contentious issues, experts praised it as an important step to stem the deterioration of Seoul and Tokyo's ties with Beijing amid China's strategic competition with the United States and the latter’s growing military cooperation with South Korea and Japan.
The summit was also timely for South Korea and Japan, both of which are seeking to balance regional relations amid some uncertainty about their future ties with Washington after the U.S. presidential election this November.
“As countries who share a great responsibility for peace and prosperity in the region, we have reaffirmed our determination to promote trilateral cooperation in a variety of issues,” Kishida said in a joint press announcement, citing declining birthrates and aging populations as some of three countries’ shared challenges.
Underlining the importance of frequent face-to-face discussions, Yoon said that “mutual trust and understanding” lie at the heart of trilateral cooperation.
For his part, Li said the talks marked both a “restart and a new beginning” in trilateral relations.
At the same time, he stressed that a “comprehensive” resumption of cooperation must take place “in line with the principle of non-exclusivity and non-discrimination.”
The Chinese premier called on Tokyo and Seoul to “oppose turning economic and trade issues into political or security issues and reject protectionism as well as decoupling or the severing of supply chains.”
Experts said Li’s remarks illustrated Beijing’s growing concern over the deepening U.S.-Japan-South Korea security partnership as a mechanism to contain China’s expanding regional ambitions.
At the same time, Li may have sought to drive a wedge between the two U.S. allies, which headed into this summit more aligned than in any of the previous eight trilateral meetings, amid the backdrop of the growing Sino-U.S. rivalry.
Another key issue on the agenda was North Korea, which recently announced preparations to put its second military spy satellite into orbit by June 4.
Yoon demanded a strong international response to the move, while Kishida called on Pyongyang to halt the planned launch, adding that the denuclearization of North Korea and the stability of the Korean Peninsula are “in the common interests of the three countries.”
While all parties agreed on the importance of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, China seemingly resisted the use of harsh language condemning North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, with Li simply calling on “relevant parties to exercise restraint and prevent further complication of the situation.”
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the trilateral summit, which started in 1999 as a multilateral forum with Southeast Asian countries. The last such meeting was held in late 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck and the region saw a rapid escalation of geopolitical tensions.
To help overcome at least some of such tensions, the three leaders agreed Monday to set up “safe supply chains,” establish a “transparent and predictable trade and investment environment,” and hold discussions to “speed up” free trade agreement negotiations that have stalled since 2019.
While Japan, China and South Korea are all signatories to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership– a multilateral free trade agreement comprising 14 Asia-Pacific nations — they don’t possess a shared framework for trilateral economic cooperation.
Maintaining strong trade ties with its neighbors has become critical for China amid the country’s ongoing economic slowdown, particularly as South Korea and Japan have joined U.S. efforts to redirect critical supply chains away from China.
“By agreeing to return to the trilateral cooperation format originally launched in 2008, the region's leaders have demonstrated an effort to secure and deepen economic ties, thereby increasing resilience in the face of new trade wars should Donald Trump return to the White House,” said Sebastian Maslow, an international relations expert and associate professor at the University of Tokyo.
“The agreement to move forward with negotiations on a trilateral free trade agreement is certainly evidence of these concerns, but also a commitment to free trade as a key driver of growth in the region,” he noted.
However, it remains to be seen whether the three parties will be prepared to follow up with concrete steps, as the leaders remained vague in terms of concrete measures or a timetable.
In their joint statement, the leaders did not address the wars in the Gaza Strip or Ukraine, but they mentioned efforts to ramp up trilateral cooperation through intergovernmental mechanisms in areas such as education and tourism, among others.
Preceding the summit was a series of bilateral meetings held the previous day.
During talks with Yoon on Sunday, Li pledged to further ease market access and welcome more South Korean companies to invest and do business in China.
He also met with the chairman of South Korean tech giant Samsung to deepen Sino-Korean ties in the field of semiconductors. Unlike Japan and other U.S. allies across the globe, Seoul has yet to ban the export of sensitive technologies to China.
For his part, in a veiled reference to what Tokyo sees as China’s manufacturing overcapacity and excessive state intervention, Kishida highlighted the importance of maintaining and strengthening a “free and fair international economic order.”
His remarks came amid accusations from the United States and the European Union that Beijing is engaging in “unfair economic and trade practices,” such as using industrial overcapacity to flood global markets with cheap goods, particularly in the new green industry.
Shortly after the summit, the three leaders took part in a meeting with business leaders, where they pledged to boost trade cooperation and work together on global challenges. Representatives from national business federations such as Japan’s Keidanren also attended the event.
Experts agree that the most notable aspect of the meeting is that it took place at all, as it provided a means to promote communication and manage tensions.
“Even just meeting keeps open dialogue avenues that will allow the three to manage relations," said Chase Blazek, Asia-Pacific analyst at U.S.-based geopolitics and intelligence firm RANE, adding that this could become “all the more necessary should Kishida fail to get reelected at September’s Liberal Democratic Party leadership election.”
Misato Matsuoka, an associate professor at Teikyo University, said the trilateral summit has “offered some hope for regional cooperation,” especially as the countries agreed to hold meetings on a regular basis and work to institutionalize cooperation.
“This shows the seriousness of their commitment to confidence building,” Matsuoka said, citing as an example the three countries’ designation of 2025-2026 as a cultural exchange period.
Ultimately, the success of the renewed dialogue will depend on the three nations’ ability to address contentious issues incrementally, while building trust through collaboration on areas of mutual interest, Maslow said.
For instance, he pointed to Kishida and Yoon's comments at the end of the summit urging China to do more to manage tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
This, Maslow said, indicates that security issues, including Beijing's role in supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine, “will ultimately be central to the success of future talks.”
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