China-Japan-ROK summit to open new chapter in cooperation

BEIJING - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang travels to Seoul this weekend for an official visit to South Korea and the first leaders' meeting of the top three economies in East Asia after a three-year hiatus.

Given the economic heft of China, Japan and South Korea, observers say, the upcoming summit is set to inject a badly needed dose of political impetus into their cooperation and fresh vigor into regional development.

TURNING POINT FOR COOPERATION

As a crucial and integral part of East Asian cooperation, the trilateral mechanism was initiated in 1999 as a derivative of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan and South Korea platform, with annual leaders' meetings launched in 2008 outside the 10+3 framework.

It had grown into a full-fledged institution featuring all-dimensional, multi-tiered and wide-ranging cooperation before its temperature took a nosedive in 2012 due to a string of Japanese moves on historical and territorial issues that angered both China and South Korea.

Now the resumption of the summitry, the core of the tripartite arrangement, indicates that cooperation among the three countries is finding its way out of the straits, returning to the right track and marching into a new phase, said Yang Houlan, secretary-general of the Seoul-based China-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat.

In the lead-up to the renewal, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held an ice-breaking summit in November on the sidelines of the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Beijing.

Meanwhile, relations between South Korea and Japan have also been on the mend. At the 10+3 summit last year, South Korean President Park Geun-hye voiced her hope that the three countries would hold a foreign ministers' meeting in the near future and then a trilateral summit. During her early September visit to China, Park also sought China's support in resuming the leaders' meetings.

Although the resumption does not mean that the three countries have solved their problems, it shows that they are intent on improving relations and handling differences, said Ruan Zongze, vice president of China Institute of International Studies.

In addition, the high-level meeting is poised to create a sound atmosphere that will restrain relevant parties from misbehaving and invigorate trilateral cooperation at different levels, and thus play a positive role in improving China-Japan-South Korea ties and promoting regional stability and development, he added.