China Daily Exclusive

Trilateral meeting to boost relations

By Tan Yingzi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-10 08:39

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (left) attends a joint news confernce with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak after a summit at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Friday. It was the first time the Japanese prime minister had visited Seoul. Hatoyama and Lee arrived in Beijing late Friday for the second meeting of leaders from China, Japan and ROK. Reuters

The second independent trilateral leaders' summit among China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) on Saturday will create great hopes for future cooperation and development in this region, Chinese experts said.

The first such meeting took place in December in Fukuoka, Japan, in the face of the global financial crisis and it was regarded as having"opened a new era" of neighborly solidarity despite historical disputes and conflicts.

"The Fukuoka summit saw the dawn of close cooperation among the three nations. In Beijing, we can expect a meeting with great hopes for further and deeper exchanges when the three countries are recovering from the financial crisis," Liu Jiangyong, a senior expert on Sino-Japanese relations at Tsinghua University, told China Daily on Friday.

Premier Wen Jiabao, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and ROK President Lee Myung-bak are expected to discuss the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the East Asian community, climate change and next year's G20 economic summit in South Korea, analysts said.

This will be Hatoyama's first visit to China since he became prime minister.

The three parties are expected to issue two joint statements after the summit about balancing economic growth as well as deepening "win-win" political and economic ties, according to media reports.

Hatoyama is expected to propose a detailed plan of the East Asian community in Beijing, which should include the basic geographic concept of the union, major content, main targets and a roadmap to this aim, Liu said.

"Japan has raised the concept many times without offering more concrete solutions and I expect that Hatoyama will give something that the three countries can really talk about," he said.

But a conceptual gap exists between Beijing and Tokyo as China prefers the East Asian community to be restricted to the Southeast Asian nations plus China, Japan and the ROK. Japan wants to involve some other countries, even the United States, he added.

Piao Jianyi, chief of the Center of Korean Peninsula Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the ROK will seek support from its two neighbors for the coming G20 summit next June.

DPRK nuclear issue

Before meeting their counterparts in Beijing, the leaders of the ROK and Japan met first in Seoul on Friday morning and took a united front to press the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to take concrete steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, foreign media reported.

This was also Hatoyama's first visit to the ROK as prime minister.

The effort aims to press both the US and China to consider more about the interests of Japan and the ROK when dealing with DPRK, Piao said.

"This joint stance may go beyond US expectations, which shows Japan and South Korea are getting more anxious on the issue," he said.

Hatoyama said he agreed with Lee Myung-bak's view on withholding aid to Pyongyang.

"Unless there is a precise change in North Korea (DPRK)'s actions (in its nuclear and missile programs), we should not provide economic cooperation. North Korea's will to change must be seen," Hatoyama said at a joint news conference.

Lee's proposal to offer a one-time "grand bargain" of aid and concessions in exchange for denuclearization rather than the step-by-step process pursued over the past six years is "completely correct", Hatoyama said.

In Beijing, they are likely to hear directly from Wen about the outcome of his talks with DPRK leader Kim Jong-il, who told China's prime minister that his country is ready to rejoin the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, which involves DPRK, ROK, China, Japan, US and Russia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

(China Daily 10/10/2009 page2)