Department of Research, Studies and International News 19-03-2025

The top diplomats of China, South Korea and Japan will meet in Tokyo for talks this weekend, the three East Asian countries said on Tuesday.

Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said the three “important neighbors have a great influence on, and responsibility for, the peace and prosperity of the region and the international community.”

“To promote future-oriented cooperation, we would like to hold a frank exchange of views and discussions on the cooperation between the three countries and the regional situation,” he told reporters.

A trilateral working dinner will be held on Friday between Iwaya and his South Korean and Chinese counterparts, Cho Tae-yul and Wang Yi, respectively, before the talks on Saturday.

Seoul’s foreign ministry said the trilateral ministerial meeting would be the 11th of its kind. The last such meeting was in November 2023 in the South Korean port city of Busan.

The Japan Broadcasting Corp., or NHK, said the three ministers were expected to discuss cooperation in areas “such as people-to-people exchanges, economic cooperation and measures to combat the falling birthrate.”

They would also aim to agree on arranging a trilateral summit by the end of the year, NHK said.

The nations will also hold bilateral talks on Saturday, and Japan and China will have their first “high-level economic dialogue” in six years, Iwaya said.

He also named the issue of fishery product imports as an important topic to be discussed with China, which banned Japanese seafood imports in 2023 after Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant into the ocean.

China said in September it would “gradually resume” importing seafood from Japan, but this has yet to begin.

Leaders summit last year

In May last year, the leaders of the three countries held a rare summit in Seoul — the first such top-level talks in five years — at which they agreed to deepen trade ties.

They also reaffirmed their commitment to the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” — a reference to nuclear-armed North Korea.

Seoul and Tokyo typically take a stronger line against Pyongyang than China, which remains one of North Korea’s most important allies and economic benefactors, despite leader Kim Jong Un’s recent moves to bolster ties with historic ally Russia.

Experts say any moves by Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing to ramp up trilateral cooperation and boost economic ties augur well for future agreements on more difficult topics like Kim’s nuclear weapons.

China, and to a lesser extent, Seoul and Tokyo have been hit by tariffs put in place by United States President Donald Trump in recent weeks.

“The upcoming meeting is expected to prioritize economic issues in the wake of the Trump administration’s hard push to raise import tariffs,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies.

“Such protectionist measures are not beneficial to any of the three countries,” Lim added, so the diplomats “could discuss ways to invigorate trilateral trade.”

“With that in mind, the issue of North Korea may be addressed, but it is unlikely to be a top priority.”

South Korea is awaiting a Constitutional Court ruling onb whether to remove President Yoon Suk Yeol from office over his botched martial law declaration on Dec. 3.

While in office, Yoon pushed for closer ties with Japan, attempting to bury the historical hatchet in order to present a united trilateral front with the US against North Korea’s growing military provocations.