Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met in Seoul on Monday for long-awaited talks on trade, people-to-people exchanges, science and technology, and more. The three countries’ last leaders’ summit took place in 2019.
This year’s 38-point joint statement was heavy on hope and light on commitment, celebrating the neighbours’ “shared everlasting history, infinite future, [and] significant potential for co-operation,” but shying away from any substantive new partnerships.
The countries did, however, agree to conduct trilateral meetings on a more regular basis and, once again, “speed up” negotiations for a joint free trade agreement — an initiative first outlined in 2012, but that has languished since 2019.
All three countries are parties to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a 15-member Asia Pacific trade deal that came into force in 2022. China, Japan, and South Korea collectively account for 80 per cent of the combined GDP of all RCEP economies.
This week’s discussions will not radically alter the region's ‘big-picture’ geopolitics, but the resumption of dialogue bodes well for stability in East Asia.
Seoul, Tokyo continue to deepen ties
Maybe the summit’s most noteworthy accomplishment is that it happened at all: over the last five years, icy relations between South Korea and Japan, paired with COVID-19 considerations and an increasingly assertive China, made exchanges sporadic and occasionally testy.
Following the 2019 summit, The Diplomat noted that tensions between Tokyo and Seoul were “at their highest in decades,” due to a ruling by the Supreme Court of South Korea ordering Japanese firms to pay South Koreans for forced labour during Japan’s colonial era. Japan retaliated by restricting exports of high-tech materials to South Korea.
Kishida and Yoon have made significant strides to soothe relations over the last two years, vowing in 2023 to resolve deep-seated historical grievances. U.S. President Joe Biden “commended” this development, and hosted both leaders for a trilateral summit in August 2023.
A delicate diplomatic dance
Japan and South Korea, both U.S. treaty allies, are engaged in a delicate diplomatic dance: both countries rely on China as their biggest trading partner, but also enjoy robust defence and economic relationships with the U.S.
Ottawa faces a similar, albeit less drastic, challenge: how to manage relations with China, Canada’s second-largest trading partner, as the two countries clash on issues ranging from trade to foreign interference and human rights.
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s ‘pragmatic diplomacy’ — defined as “keeping allies close, while being open to different perspectives” — has seen dialogue and travel resume between Ottawa and Beijing, with Joly dispatching her deputy minister to China in April to “thaw relations.”
