SK president to attend Beijing event
Print Edition
SOUTH Korean President Park Geun-hye will visit China next month to attend a ceremony marking the anniversary of victory over Japan in World War II, her office said yesterday.
It is one of a series of events commemorating the anniversary which will include a military parade in Beijing.
Park’s office said she will attend the September 3 anniversary ceremony but remains undecided on whether to attend the military parade set for the same day.
Ju Chul-ki, senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs, told a press briefing that Park would be traveling to Shanghai later in the day ahead of a ceremony on September 4 to mark the reopening of the office of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, which was established in Shanghai in 1919.
Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula and occupied parts of China before and during World War II.
China assisted North Korea and fought against South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, while American-led UN troops fought alongside South Korea. China and South Korea now have booming trade ties.
It’s not known if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will attend the Chinese ceremonies. If he does, it will be his first known travel outside the country since taking power on the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011.
Earlier this year, there was speculation Kim would attend May’s Victory Day celebrations in Russia. But instead he sent the head of his parliament.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the celebrations in Beijing.
Meanwhile, Japan said it needs details of China’s plans for the September 3 events before deciding if Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the Chinese capital for a summit with President Xi Jinping, a Japanese government source said.
Sino-Japanese ties, embittered by a territorial row, have thawed slightly since Abe and Xi met at multilateral gatherings in April and last November.
“Both sides have the sense they want to have a leaders’ meeting to advance Sino-Japanese relations,” the source told reporters.
“This would be the first real Japan-China summit. We would like to do this, but there are aspects of the ceremony which are not negotiable,” Reuters quoted him.
China’s foreign ministry has denied a report in the Mainichi newspaper that Abe would visit China on September 3 but not attend the parade, saying it had “never heard of” such a visit.
China’s reaction to Abe’s August 14 statement marking the end of World War II had been “basically restrained,” the source said.
In his remarks, Abe upheld previous Japanese governments’ apologies over the war, but made no new apology of his own.
Economic matters would be a key theme of any summit, the source said, but a row over disputed islands in the East China Sea would also figure.
“There are many economic topics to discuss,” he said. “The mutual impact is huge.”
The slowing growth of Japan’s exports to China, its biggest trading partner, was worrisome, the source added.
Exports to China rose 4.2 percent in July on the year, from June’s 5.9 percent.
Japan’s economy shrank an annualized 1.6 percent in the April-June quarter.
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