East Asian Trilateral Meeting

Chinese President, Xi Jinping, and President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, agreed on having trilateral summit meeting including Japan in South Korea this fall. Japanese government is basically willing to accept their agreement. It is likely those three countries will resume communication among top leaders after deteriorated relationships under a revisionist Japanese leader. This style of decision-making in international relations indicated new structure of East Asian region.

Against advice of United States, Park visited Beijing to attend a memorial ceremony for seventieth anniversary from victory in anti-Japan war. Xi welcomed Park with unusually high protocol, having personal lunch meeting only with Park among twenty leaders gathered in Beijing.

According to a report, Park proposed the trilateral summit meeting and Xi accepted it. Although both leaders have been closely watching what Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would say in the statement of seventieth anniversary from the end of World War II, they seemed to decide that it was the time for stepping forward to reconciliation.

Japanese government delivered positive response to the offer. “We hope to cooperate for having the trilateral summit by the end of this year, expecting to reinforce relationship with China and Republic of Korea,” told Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga. Japanese government has kept on demanding the summit, which has not been held since 2012 when three leaders met in Japan. Japanese government might be thinking that the meeting would be done under leadership of Japan.

For Park, good relationship with China is crucial. Trade with China has drastically been swollen with economic growth in China and exchange of people has also greatly increased. While depending on U.S. in national security, Korean economy cannot spare China. With conservative sentiment against Japan in seventy years anniversary, approaching China would enhance Park’s political basis.

For Abe, improvement of diplomatic relationship will work for his political gain. It is inevitable for him to lose popularity after passing highly controversial security bills. With volatile move in stock market, his economic policy, Abenomics, looks like in stalemate. He expects diplomacy to offset those negative elements.

Obviously, the winner is China. Adding to military partnership with Russia, China will able to keep good economic relationship with ROK. Japan is reluctant to have further confrontation against China. China seems to be building fortress against U.S.