South Korea is in talks with China and Japan about hosting a trilateral summit next month. “As the current chair of the trilateral dialogue, we are negotiating with China and Japan to finalize the schedule,” said a government source on April 4. Japan’s Kyodo News also reported, “South Korea is planning to hold a trilateral summit in May.” If this summit takes place, it will be the first of its kind in over four years since the last summit in Chengdu, China, in December 2019.
The three countries have held trilateral summits since 2008, with Japan, China, and South Korea taking turns as hosts. Since China hosted the last meeting, it is now South Korea’s turn to host the next one. At the Chengdu meeting in 2019, the countries agreed to hold trilateral summits and foreign ministers’ meetings regularly. But these gatherings have been put on hold due to the covid-19 pandemic and growing tensions among the countries.
The Yoon Suk-yeol administration has been pushing to revive the trilateral summit between South Korea, China, and Japan. Although foreign ministers from these countries convened in Busan last November, they only reached a broad agreement to “hold a summit at the earliest mutually convenient time” without finalizing a date.
The meeting, should it take place next month, could serve as an opportunity to manage regional conflicts among the three Northeast Asian countries amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and China and the deepening divide between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea against North Korea, China, and Russia, especially in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since the first meeting in 2008, China has been represented by its prime minister rather than the president at the trilateral summits. Premier Li Chang, rather than President Xi Jinping, is also expected to represent China at this year’s summit.
