Japan-China-S.Korea trilateral summit meet

Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrives in Seoul, South Korea on May 26, 2024

Seoul is the venue  for the ninth Trilateral Summit Meeting among  Japan , China and South Korea from Sunday to Monday. The  Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese Premier  Li Qiang  had a meeting  and then Li met  South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on the first day itself .

 The three  important economies of   East Asia are trying to  make pragmatic efforts to make sure the economic development and integration of the region is  not be affected by bloc confrontation and geopolitical crises.    

The three countries are currently facing different challenges due to the disruption of the global supply chain and other impacts, so they all have a  realistic desire to resume the trilateral mechanism ,  to seek cooperation with each other and prevent potential instability by boosting senior-level communication between the governments.

The trilateral summit is being held  after  more than four years.   It was last held in China’s Chengdu in 2019. The three leaders  will attend key events including the trilateral summit meeting and the China-Japan-South Korea business summit where they will exchange views on trilateral cooperation.

Trilateral mechanism 

 China, Japan and South Korea are standing at a critical juncture of whether to choose bloc confrontation or to build cooperation  with shared future, and this will decide whether the region maintains peace and development or sees more instability and tensions.    

 The trilateral summit meeting should have been held earlier, but due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and tensions between South Korea and Japan during the term of Yoon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in, the trilateral mechanism stagnated.

Today, due to Russia-Ukraine conflict and China-US tensions, global supply chains and industrial chains have all been interrupted in this region , also  the region’s three major economies are facing different challenges. Now they realize that it’s time to bring trilateral ties back on track so that they can seek help from each other to ensure a stable recovery of the economy and to boost regional economic integration.

The three countries used to be complementary in terms of economy and trade, but now, their industries are becoming each other’s main competitors . Seoul and Tokyo have also   joined  other   blocs which has   the US  as a member . Since these blocks  are  likely to contain China, so it’s necessary for Chinese  leaders and senior officials     to maintain frequent and close communication with the other two countries  to prevent the region from falling into confrontation.  

 The economic size of the three countries makes up  of the world economy, and the trade between them reportedly takes up about 23% percent of the global trade volume, so the cooperation among them not only benefits the peoples of the three countries, but also help global recovery. 

There are many long-standing and complicated issues between the three countries, including disputes over territory and historical issues, as well as Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water release and the impact from the US, so it’s unrealistic to expect the trilateral summit meeting to solve all of these problems immediately, but the key is finding a way to prevent these problems from undermining the mutual-beneficial and necessary economic and trade cooperation, as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges, analysts say.   

Need for cooperation

During the meeting between Li and Yoon, the Chinese premier called on South Korea to work with the Chinese side to grasp the general direction of friendship and mutual trust between the two countries, and respect each other’s core interests and major concerns, Xinhua reported. It is also hoped that the two sides can be each other’s friendly neighbour of mutual trust and partner of mutual achievement, and promote a sound, steady and substantial development of China-South Korea relations, Li said.


Yoon underscored the importance of working with China to address rising economic uncertainties in the wake of the ongoing crises in Ukraine and Gaza. “I hope we can continue to strengthen our cooperation amid today’s global complex crises,” South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported him as saying.


“After the South Korean legislative elections in April, Yoon has to face the situation of the opposition party dominating the parliament throughout the rest of his term, adding to economic problems like soaring prices. Yoon is now taking action to be more pragmatic and try to fix ties with its top trading partner,” said an analyst .

South Korea is the chair of the trilateral meeting this year. As Yoon has already improved ties with Japan over the past two years, he will take the important chance this year to fix ties with another pillar of this trilateral mechanism, experts noted. 

Li said at the meeting that foreign enterprises are an indispensable force for China’s development and its mega-market will always be open to foreign companies. Li said China welcomes South Korean companies including Samsung to continue to expand investment and cooperation in China and share more of the new opportunities brought about by China’s new development.

Li also called on enterprises from China and South Korea to tap deeper into their cooperation potential in new areas such as high-end manufacturing, digital economy, artificial intelligence, green development and biomedicine, so as to continuously upgrade bilateral economic and trade cooperation and achieve greater win-win cooperation.

Li and Yoon agreed on Sunday to accelerate the second phase of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations between the two countries. The two sides also agree to hold high-level strategic dialogues between foreign ministries and the vice-ministerial level “diplomatic and security 2+2 dialogue” at the appropriate time, and the two sides also agree to resume China-South Korea people-to-people, cultural and youth exchanges, to provide more convenience for personnel exchanges between the two countries. 

Be pragmatic

Due to actions of  the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions, Japan and South Korea are facing pressure such as currency devaluation, but this will also bring advantages to their products when exporting to China, which has a mega-market and also demands for more foreign investment, so this will bring common interests to the three countries as they all face their challenges.

China is worried that Japanese and South Korean companies are moving to Southeast Asia, and also joining the US-led blocs  in the fields of AI technologies and semiconductors, so it’s important for China to enhance communication with them to prevent risks from damaging the entire trilateral mechanism, Da said. 

Li on Sunday urged Japan during his meeting with Kishida to earnestly fulfill its responsibilities and obligations regarding the release of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The release of the wastewater affects the health of humanity, Li added.