Could the coronavirus help to improve China’s ties with South Korea, Japan?

Cooperation on ‘soft’ issues like public health can provide an ‘opportunity for improvement’ in the nations’ broader relationship, international affairs expert says

Foreign ministers agree to do all they can to ensure Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned visits to east Asian neighbours go ahead later this year

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South Korea on Thursday reported 505 new coronavirus cases, its largest increase yet. Photo: AP

Published: 10:30pm, 27 Feb 2020Updated: 9:48pm, 28 Feb 2020

The rapid spread of the coronavirus outside China, especially in South Korea and Japan, has created a fresh challenge to Beijing’s delicate relationship with its northeast Asian neighbours, but experts say the unprecedented public health crisis could draw them closer, at least for now.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi held separate conversations with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts on Wednesday as Beijing scrambles to deal with the growing risk of imported infections from the two countries.

In a sign of the “strong momentum at the leadership level on both sides”, Wang and Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi agreed to ensure Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Japan later this year goes ahead as planned, despite mounting fears the virus outbreak will become a pandemic.

China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Yang Jiechi, Wang’s predecessor and Xi’s top aide on foreign affairs, would visit Japan on Friday. His trip is expected to pave the way for Xi’s high stakes visit in the spring, observers said.

But Benoit Hardy-Chartrand, an international affairs expert at Temple University in Tokyo, said that if the outbreak did not subside in the next few weeks, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government would come under intense pressure to delay the visit.

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