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China-Japan-South Korea summit fails to cover key security issues despite having ‘right optics’
- Such summits typically cover non-political issues so there were no ‘high expectations’ that thornier issues related to security or conflict would be discussed
- But the trilateral summit promotes lower-level dialogue among senior officials, encourages key people-to-people exchanges and maintains ties, an analyst says
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A leaders’ summit between China, Japan and South Korea, the first in 4 1/2 years, “superficially had the right optics” despite not addressing key security issues, according to observers.
Officials from the three countries earlier this week held talks in Seoul amid low expectations for an outcome, given closer strategic cooperation between Japan and South Korea as well as their growing ties with the United States and its allies against Beijing’s rising influence.
In the joint declaration issued after the Monday summit, the three countries called for wide-ranging cooperation, including resuming negotiations on a free-trade agreement as well as expanding people-to-people exchanges.
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Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol also reaffirmed their goal of a denuclearised Korean peninsula.
The trilateral summit traditionally covered soft, non-political issues so there was never high expectations that thornier issues related to security, or conflict would make it to the agenda
Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation chair of Korea studies at the Brookings Institution’s Centre for Asia Policy Studies, said the joint statement expressed the desire to “institutionalise”, or to hold the event on a regular basis.
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