Leaders of China, Japan, SKorea vow to boost ties
Print Edition
THE leaders of China, South Korea and Japan yesterday pledged to move toward greater economic integration at their first joint meeting in more than three years, as they worked to ease tensions stemming from Japan’s wartime atrocities.
A joint statement issued after the meeting of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the sides agreed to try to resolve history-related issues and improve ties by “facing history squarely and advancing toward the future.”
They also pledged to restart an annual leaders’ summit and push to deepen economic cooperation by accelerating free trade negotiations. They also reaffirmed their resolve to resume stalled international negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Park said she agreed with Li and Abe to work toward the conclusion of a 16-nation free trade area, as well as a three-way free trade deal that has been on the table since 2013.
“We agreed to work together for the conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP),” she told a joint news conference with Li and Abe after the 90-minute summit in Seoul.
“We agreed to expand economic and social cooperation for the mutual prosperity of Northeast Asia, and also to strengthen cooperation among the three countries to create new growth,” she said.
China has been a proponent of the RCEP, which would create the world’s biggest free trade bloc of 3.4 billion people.
Negotiators for the 16 countries, which also include India and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations met in Busan, South Korea, last month to discuss opening markets and cutting tariffs.
South Korean and Chinese ties with Japan have been troubled by repeated failures by leaders in Tokyo to properly atone for wartime atrocities.
Li said Japan had yet to do all it can to appease the suspicion held by the two countries that suffered under its wartime aggression.
“Cooperation should be made on the basis of handling sensitive issues such as history in a proper way and by promoting mutual understanding,” he said at the summit’s opening.
“It is regrettable that even among our three close countries, there cannot be a deeper understanding,” he said.
Li said China, South Korea and Japan should stick to the policy of facing up to history and looking forward, so as to better develop trilateral cooperation and bilateral ties.
The one-day summit in Seoul was the first of its kind in more than three years. High-level contact between Japan and its two Asian neighbors nose-dived after hawkish Abe took office in 2012.
“I think it’s historically important that the trilateral cooperation has been resumed,” Park said.
On Saturday, Park and Li met separately and agreed to work toward ratifying by the end of the year a bilateral free trade agreement that their legislatures have yet to approve.
Park is scheduled to meet Abe today in what will be her first formal one-on-one meeting with him since her inauguration in early 2013.
Park told Li that she wants China to continue to play a constructive role on North Korea issues, while Li called for more patience to continue efforts to achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
The leaders in the joint statement reaffirmed “firm opposition to the development of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.”
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