After a long diplomatic freeze, S Korea’s Park to meet Japanese PM Shinzo Abe
Seoul (AsiaNews) – South Korean President Park Geun-hye will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next week in their first one-on-one meeting. The two leaders have a lot on their plate, including the sensitive issue of Korean “comfort women” and Japan’s nationalist schoolbooks.
The bilateral meeting will take part on the margins of a potentially historic three-way summit that includes mainland China, starting next Sunday in Seoul. The three East Asian nations are divided on various political and economic issues. As an outsider, the United States is looking on, as its role in the region might be jeopardised by a three-party partnership.
The lead-up to the meeting has been full of expectations, with China hoping to find new allies, especially after South Korean President Park broke ranks to attend a lavish military parade in Beijing last month. The US saw the latter as a show of force by President Xi Jinping.
For Abe and Park, a bilateral meeting provides an opportunity at least to lessen tensions. Relations between the two neighbours have never been easy – clouded by sensitive historical disputes related to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula, in particular, the issue of Korean women forcibly recruited to work in Japanese wartime brothels. Tokyo has always claimed that private traffickers were responsible for the women, not the Japanese military.
For its part, Japan has to vet what to do with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, set up under China’s leadership.
For China, inducing South Korea and Japan to join in a tripartite partnership would provide unparalleled trade opportunities. This would give Beijing an opportunity to counter US ascendancy in Japan, despite its many territorial disputes with Tokyo.
Still, the three nations are far apart on many issues. What is more, rather than President Xi, China is sending a less-influential figure, Premier Li Keqiang. Li is responsible for economic issues, and Beijing is especially keen on reviving stalled talks on a three-way trade deal.
Whatever the case, the summit could be significant even if the three leaders only manage to build confidence and agree to more summits, said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Japan.
“They can focus on trade issues, security issues, and perhaps leave territorial and historical issues to the side for a moment,” he said. “Their relationships are far too important to neglect as they have.”
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