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China, Japan and South Korea will this week hold the first meeting of their foreign ministers in three years, Tokyo said today, in the latest sign of a gradual thaw in East Asian relations.
The three men - Japan's Fumio Kishida, China's Wang Yi and South Korea's Yun Byung-se - will meet in Seoul on Saturday, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.
The upcoming Seoul meeting will be the first among foreign ministers of the three countries since April 2012.
“Cooperation among the three countries is important for Japan and we naturally hope this foreign ministers’ meeting will lead to a summit in the future,” the official said.
He added no date had been set yet for a trilateral summit. Three-way summit meetings of the countries’ leaders, which had been held annually from 2008, have been on hold since May 2012.
China’s foreign ministry said the three ministers would exchange views on the development of ties, and that China and Japan were in talks about their own bilateral meeting.
While relations between China and South Korea are strong, both have strained ties with Japan, chiefly because of historical and territorial disputes.
Japan and China have long been at odds over the sovereignty of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, which Japan administers and calls the Senkakus, but which China claims as the Diaoyus.
Relations soured further in 2012 when the Japanese government angered China by nationalising some of the islands.
Since then, Tokyo and Beijing have routinely clashed over the issue, with official Chinese ships and aircraft regularly testing Japanese forces.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping staged a frosty handshake on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in November, but ties remain under pressure.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has held two summits with Xi, but only sat down with Abe at a three-way summit under pressure from Washington.
President Park said this month that Japan was an important partner which shared the principle of free democracy and market economy.
Abe and Park met briefly with US President Barack Obama, who is seen as trying to mend ties between the two US allies, a year ago at a nuclear security summit.
Tension between those two friends [Japan and South Korea] constitutes a strategic liability to all of us
US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel
Seoul-Tokyo ties have always been problematic, given the bitter legacy of Japan’s 1910-45 rule over the Korean peninsula.
As well as a dispute over some South Korea-controlled islets, Seoul feels Tokyo has yet to fully atone for the excesses of its colonial rule and the forced recruitment of South Korean women to wartime military brothels.
South Korea has accused Japan of trying to "undermine" an apology issued in 1993 to Asia’s so-called comfort women, who were forced to work as wartime sex slaves in Japanese brothels, by conducting a review of it last year.
The friction is a source of irritation for Washington, which would rather its two key regional allies could bury the hatchet and instead focus on forming a united front against an increasingly assertive China.
US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel, in Seoul today, said relationship difficulties needed to be ironed out for the good of everyone.
“We will work to support the improvement in bilateral relations between Japan and Korea,” Russel said, adding that the US was friends with both nations.
“Tension between those two friends constitutes a strategic liability to all of us,” he said.
He also urged the Asian players to deal with the “legacy of history in a way that creates progress for the 21st century”.
With additional reporting from Reuters


China, South Korea and Japan to hold foreign ministers meeting after three-year chill

From left: Japan Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korea's Yun Byung-se and China's Wang Yi. Photos: AFP, EPA, Reuters

From left: Japan Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korea's Yun Byung-se and China's Wang Yi. Photos: Kyodo, Xinhua, AFP

Tokyo and Beijing have routinely clashed over historical and territorial issues, reflected in a frosty handshake between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of Apec in November. Photo: Reuters

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Asia

China, Japan and South Korea will this week hold the first meeting of their foreign ministers in three years, Tokyo said today, in the latest sign of a gradual thaw in East Asian relations.
