Yesterday, China, Japan, and South Korea held discussions at the deputy foreign minister-level in Seoul, setting the stage for a full-fledged ministerial meeting later. The talks apparently went well — afterward, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed that a trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting is scheduled for “late March.” Japanese media gave a more exact date: March 20-21.
China, Japan, and South Korea used to hold regular trilateral discussions, including an annual summit between their top leaders. The trilateral platforms were effectively abandoned beginning in 2012, when China-Japan relations took a sharp nosedive after the Japanese government nationalized the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Trilateral discussions at the deputy-minister level resumed in September 2014, when Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin met in Seoul with South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Lee Kyung-soo and Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama.
Those three gathered again in Seoul on Wednesday for the grandly named “10th Trilateral Senior Foreign Affairs Officials Consultation among China, Japan and the ROK.” The major purpose of the talk was to pave the way for a meeting among foreign ministers, the first since May 2012. “If the trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting is held soon, it will undoubtedly give us the opportunity to re-establish the groundwork for trust-building and common prosperity,” Deputy Foreign Minister Lee said after Wednesday’s talks.
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