China hosted the leaders of squabbling neighbors South Korea and Japan for their first meeting in over a year on Tuesday, flexing its diplomatic muscle with America’s two key military allies in Asia and seeking unity on how to deal with a belligerent North Korea.
The gathering in the southwestern city of Chengdu was held with the clock ticking on a threatened “Christmas gift” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that could reignite global tensions over its nuclear programme.
Kim has promised the unidentified “gift” — which analysts and American officials believe could be a provocative missile test — if the United States does not make concessions in their nuclear talks by the end of the year.
The gathering also featured the first bilateral meeting between South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 15 months.
Ties between their two nations have hit rock bottom in recent months over trade issues and other disputes related to decades of bitter wrangling over Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula.
The United States has frequently urged its two allies to bury the hatchet — worried that their poor relations were complicating diplomacy in Asia — although it has held off on direct mediation.
China is appearing to fill that void with the Chengdu event.
“As the region’s major power, China hopes to show its diplomatic presence to the world by bringing the Japanese and South Korean leaders to the same table,” Haruko Satoh, professor and expert on Chinese politics at Osaka University, told AFP.
At separate lead-up meetings in Beijing on Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Moon and Abe both spoke of China’s diplomatic heft in the region.
Before leaving for China, Abe told reporters that links with Seoul remained “severe”.
But Abe and Moon were photographed smiling and shaking hands during the meeting.
“I hope to improve the important Japan-South Korea relations and to exchange candid opinions,” Abe said at the opening of the meeting, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
Seoul’s presidential Blue House said Moon described the two countries as “the closest neighbors geographically, historically and culturally” which “can never be apart”.
The relationship between Japan and South Korea is overshadowed by the 35 years of brutal colonization by the Japanese — including the use of sex slaves and forced labor — that is still bitterly resented today.
– Reversed course –
Ties began a downward spiral in recent months after a series of South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese firms to compensate wartime forced labour victims.
These infuriated Tokyo, who insisted the matter had been settled by a 1965 treaty between the two countries.
Seoul then threatened to withdraw from a key military intelligence-sharing pact, although it reversed course in November and agreed to extend it “conditionally”.
After the trilateral meeting, both Japan and South Korea urged the resumption of talks between Pyongyang and Washington, which have been largely deadlocked since a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Kim in Hanoi collapsed at the start of this year.
“It is important that we give our utmost support to the US-North Korea process toward complete denuclearisation of North Korea,” said Abe.
The leaders of the three countries also promised to help promote dialogue to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told a press conference they had “reaffirmed that denuclearisation of the peninsula and the lasting peace in East Asia are the common goal of the three countries”.
In an effort to pressure the United States, the North has conducted a series of short-range missile tests and threatened to go further with its “Christmas gift”.
If the North fired an intercontinental ballistic missile in defiance of UN sanctions, it would destroy Trump’s argument that he had succeeded in reducing risks from North Korea.
Former US national security adviser John Bolton, who was dismissed in September, on Monday criticized Trump’s strategy and warned the North posed an immediate threat.
“The risk to US forces & our allies is imminent & more effective policy is required before NK has the technology to threaten the American homeland,” tweeted Bolton.
Image: POOL/AFP / WANG ZHAO Chinese Premier Li Keqiang hosts the leaders of Japan and South Korea, with their nations focused on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions
