Coordination Expected for Holding Korea-China-Japan Summit Within This Year
The foreign ministers of Korea, China, and Japan created a friendly atmosphere ahead of the official trilateral meeting in Tokyo, Japan.
Cho Tae-yeol, Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, Wang Yi, Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office of the Communist Party of China (also Minister of Foreign Affairs), and Takashi Iwaya, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, posed for a commemorative photo on the 21st before entering the banquet hall set up in a hotel in Tokyo a day before the Korea-China-Japan Foreign Ministers' Meeting. Photo by Yonhap News
On the afternoon of the 21st, Cho Tae-yeol, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Korea, Wang Yi, Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office of the Communist Party of China (also serving as Foreign Minister), and Iwaya Takeshi, Japanese Foreign Minister, showed a moment of crossing hands in front of reporters before entering the welcome dinner venue set up at a hotel in downtown Tokyo.
However, they did not make any specific remarks to the on-site press regarding this meeting.
This visit by Director Wang is the first by a Chinese foreign minister in about 4 years and 4 months since November 2020. Minister Cho visited Japan for the first time since his inauguration in January last year. Excluding visits accompanying summit events, this is the first solo visit by a Korean foreign minister to Japan in about two and a half years since former Minister Park Jin in July 2022.
As the host country for this year's Korea-China-Japan foreign ministers' meeting, the Japanese government has been focusing on strengthening its China policy amid increased uncertainty in Asia policy under the second term of the U.S. Donald Trump administration, and has put effort into making Director Wang's visit possible.
Earlier, in December last year, Foreign Minister Iwaya visited China for the first time in 1 year and 8 months as Japan's foreign minister and requested Director Wang to visit Japan this time and to hold a high-level economic dialogue between China and Japan for the first time in six years.
The bilateral China-Japan meeting and the high-level economic dialogue are scheduled to take place in the afternoon after the Korea-China-Japan foreign ministers' meeting concludes on the morning of the 22nd.
At the Korea-China-Japan foreign ministers' meeting, it is known that they will evaluate the progress of trilateral cooperation since the Korea-China-Japan summit held in Seoul last May and broadly exchange views on regional and international situations.
It is also expected that coordination of opinions regarding the holding of the Korea-China-Japan summit within this year will take place.
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