Watching with Jealousy

The negative outcome was that Japan had been ignored in the conversation. The positive one was security in Northeast Asia could be achieved without Japan. The President of China, Xi Jinping, and the President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, met in Beijing on Thursday, for the first time after each new leader had assumed the presidency. Although they made a major step to tackle the North Korea issue in cooperative way, Japan still worried about the approach of its neighbors.

The two leaders agreed on denying the possession of nuclear technology by North Korea and on seeking a solution through dialogue and negotiation. “We oppose any action of destroying regional peace and stability by anyone. Our two major hope in Korean Peninsula, one of which is denuclearization and another is peaceful integration,” told Xi to Park. In the joint statement, both leaders promised to enhance strategic partnership, and agreed on high-level diplomatic and security dialogue between their leaders’ office.

It is no wonder that those two leaders approached each other. China has been wanted some investment in Chinese economy from South Korea to encourage domestic economy, which was going to be slowing down. They seemed to have talked about a deal of building a big factory of Samsung in Xi-an city. South Korea has been seeking leverage on deterring the North’s intimidation. So, accelerating the effort for free trade agreement between China and South Korea and expectation to early resumption of six party talk on the North’s nuclear and missile issues were actual achievements for both.

It is one of the best agenda for them to talk about Japan, sharing the same interest in interpretation of history. Without finger-pointing, they criticized Japan acknowledging that opposition and discredit over history existed among the nations in the region. In the joint statement, they also shared a concern of instability of the relationships among regional nations. Park reportedly asked Xi to build a statue of a Korean man who assassinated Hirofumi Ito, the Prime Minister of Japan who ruled Korea, in the city he died.

Japan is looking the meeting with jealousy. Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has no hope to meet any one of them soon, having trouble in Senkaku with China and in Takeshima with South Korea. Next opportunity for some possible progress will be the foreign minister meeting of ASEAN in Brunei. Although the minister level meeting can be expected with South Korea, the chance with meeting with Chinese minister should be standing chatting at best.