After a three-year hiatus, South Korea, Japan, and China will convene for a trilateral summit on Sunday, November 1, 2015.
The high-level meeting, though largely symbolic, is intended to address several ongoing regional disputes including historical grievances over Japan’s wartime past, Chinese military aggression in nearby waters, and prospects for a trilateral free trade agreement. Some thoughts on challenges and opportunities for progress.
South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak (L), China’s Premier Wen Jiabao (C) and Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stand in front of their national flags during a joint news conference of the fifth trilateral summit among the three nations at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 13, 2012. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic.
When leaders of Japan, South Korea, and China gather in Seoul later this week, it will be the first trilateral meeting of Northeast Asia’s main powers since May 2012.
While any meeting between the leaders of Asia’s largest economies is to be welcomed, it will most likely not result in a major step towards normalizing high-level diplomacy among the three countries. During the meeting, Mr. Abe will likely feel that he is facing a largely united Sino-Korean front. So close have Ms. Park and Mr. Xi become that some in Tokyo and Washington are questioning whether Seoul is beginning to move towards Beijing permanently.
There is little danger in the short-run that South Korea will turn its back on the United States, as well as refuse to maintain working relations with Japan. A deeper Japan-South Korea relationship makes sense on many different levels. They are both democracies, both allies of the United States. They are liberal societies with a free press, highly educated consumer class, and governed by the rule of law. They both face the specter of an increasingly powerful, coercive, and suspicious China, whose maritime claims could threaten the freedom of navigation on which they both depend as maritime trading nations. Working more closely together could make a significant difference in helping shape Beijing’s perceptions of regional stability.
A trilateral approach is fine, but it is by definition going to be focused on lowest-common denominator issues. If the three leaders can agree on a free-trade zone, that would be a big move forward in tying them closer together. But there is little likelihood that any meaningful political or security agreements will emerge.
This weekend’s trilateral summit between Li Keqiang, Park Geun-hye, and Shinzo Abe will be the first of its kind since 2012. While a great deal of attention has been paid to the trilateral, US policy makers should be primarily concerned with the outcome of the Abe-Park bilateral sideline meeting on Monday. The two leaders met informally at the UNGA in September 2015 and at Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral earlier this year, but this will mark their first formal summit.
The two countries have had a difficult past, and Imperial Japan’s behavior on the peninsula was reprehensible. But democratic Japan is not Imperial Japan — since WWII Tokyo has been a force for good in the world. It is now up to the Seoul and Tokyo to engage in private diplomacy to decide how to best deal with the past and look to the future.
A top priority for US policy is a strong trilateral alliance structure among Washington,Seoul, and Tokyo. Such an alliance would solidify Northeast Asian security by strengthening the containment and deterrence of a nuclear North Korea and pushing backing against China’s aggrandizement. South Korean leaders know that the peninsula is indefensible without Japan, just as Japanese leaders know that their security will be enhanced through cooperation with the ROK on nuclear deterrence. The pieces of a new alliance structure are in place, it will now take leadership to put it together.
On November 1, the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea will gather for a trilateral summit—their first since 2012. Since that time, China and South Korea have gotten very buddy-buddy, while South Korea and Japan have managed to avoid talking to each other even though their overriding strategic interests demand it. Perhaps the best that can be said about Japan and China is that they’ve avoided war.
In one sense, then, it’s notable that Li Keqiang, Shinzo Abe, and Park Geun-hye have found a way to sit down together for some good, old-fashioned summitry. But although it is easy to get excited about these leaders talking to, rather than yelling at, each other, there’s little reason to expect the meeting will kick off a winter of warmer relations.
What should we expect? Boilerplate language on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, deepening trilateral economic ties, and increasing dialogue seems likely. But even on these issues, national interests are not entirely aligned.
Beijing’s primary interest in North Korea has never been denuclearization, but rather stability, and President Park’s talk about unification likely makes Xi Jinping nervous. Progress on a trilateral free trade agreement has been slow, while South Korea has expressed interest in joining the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership, in which Japan is a member and from which China is currently excluded. Japan and China have seen increased dialogue over the past year or so, but an agreement on a maritime hotline—seemingly low-hanging fruit—remains out of reach.
Much more important than the trilateral summit is the expected bilateral Abe-Park meeting. Although there appears to be little prospect of South Korea and Japan resolving their historical differences, they do have much of importance to discuss—planning for North Korea contingencies, coordinating efforts to preserve order in and over the East China Sea, intelligence sharing, regional missile defense initiatives, South Korean inclusion in the TPP…the list goes on.
If President Park and Prime Minister Abe can find their inner statesmen and prove they can engage in substantive discussions, it will pave the way for more consequential trilateral diplomacy—that between Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul.
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