TOKYO – Japan, China and South Korea have failed for the third straight year to hold an annual summit, Japanese government sources said Wednesday, despite an agreement that their leaders gather for talks every year.
Among the factors behind the trilateral dialogue framework’s effective malfunction are soured Tokyo-Seoul ties over a long-standing wartime labor issue and Beijing’s intensifying military activities in the East China Sea, Kyodo reported.
The last meeting of leaders from the three East Asian nations was held in December 2019 in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.
At their first trilateral summit in 2008, the three countries agreed to hold leaders’ talks annually and to take turns acting as host, while pledging to step up cooperation in various fields such as international finance, the economy and disaster response.
The next gathering is set to be held under South Korea’s presidency, but it did not take place in 2020 and 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic and rocky relations between Japan and South Korea, which was under the government of left-leaning President Moon Jae In, the sources said.
With Yoon Suk Yeol replacing Moon in May with a pledge to improve relations with Japan, the bilateral ties have begun to show a sign of improvement.
