On May 26, the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea will gather in Seoul for a trilateral summit, the first since 2019. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will come to the long-delayed meeting with differing agendas but a common desire to stabilise relations in the face of a turbulent security landscape.
First held in 2008, the meeting was originally intended to be an annual affair with a heavy economic focus. The format is inherently asymmetrical: China sends its number two official – not its president – while South Korea and Japan dispatch their top political leaders. After the 2019 meeting in Chengdu, the Covid-19 pandemic scuttled subsequent meetings and Beijing resisted resumption, perhaps due to suspicion of the pro-US Yoon administration and friction within Japan.
But facing a lagging economy, the formation of several US-led security arrangements in its orbit and a range of trade restrictions, Beijing has shifted its stance. China is keen to reinforce its neighbours’ investments in its economy, arrest US success in formalising partnerships that Beijing sees as containment and stabilise its geopolitical position.
China is eager to provide a geopolitical counterweight to the rejuvenated US embrace of allies in the region. Japan and South Korea have both drawn closer to the United States by deepening their alliances and adopting a trilateral relationship with regular military exercises and exchanges. Under Yoon and Kishida, and with US urging, Tokyo and Seoul have sidelined historical issues that have dogged relations in past years.
The rapprochement formalised at Camp David in 2023 appeared to alarm China, prompting it to signal an openness to resuming the trilateral dialogue, in the hopes of possibly eroding the emerging strategic convergence. Although it seems unlikely Japan or South Korea will backtrack on their commitments to the US, China may advocate that both countries seek a degree of strategic autonomy rather than hew closely to US security priorities.
While South Korea and Japan have aligned more closely with the US and even expanded their support for US positions globally, they both inhabit a duality in their foreign policy approaches to China.
Workers assemble cars at a Dongfeng Honda factory in Wuhan in China’s Hubei province on April 8, 2020. Photo: AP
Although wary of Beijing’s growing economic and military power, Tokyo and Seoul need to maintain strong trade relations with China as the economic behemoth in the region. China is both Japan and South Korea’s largest trading partner. Many Korean and Japanese companies still see China as a critical market opportunity.
Although both governments have taken measures to de-risk their investments in China, Japan more so than South Korea, the importance of economic ties places limits on these efforts. At the summit, Li is likely to seek to remind his counterparts that their country’s economic fates are closely linked to China.
At the last trilateral summit, trade was prominent on the agenda. The three leaders agreed to cooperate through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and advance negotiations on a trilateral free trade agreement. Now, the prospect for such an agreement appears remote. In the intervening years, attention to vulnerable supply chains – particularly those in sensitive technology sectors – has grown, complicating trade talks.
The trade war between the US and China has imposed another degree of complexity to Japan’s and South Korea’s straddling of their close US ties and dependence on China, even in strategic sectors such as semiconductors.
South Korean industry minister Ahn Duk-geun inspects a semiconductor production line during a visit to a SK Hynix plant in Incheon on January 11. Photo: EPA-EFE/South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy
While Japan adopted some export controls on semiconductor material to China, it has resisted imposing curbs on all financial flows that feed into China’s advanced technology sectors. China is an important source of industrial materials for South Korea, which relies on China for critical minerals used in hi-tech industries like electric vehicle batteries.
China is also a major market for South Korean chips, a source of tension in the US-South Korea relationship. This high-stakes web of threat and dependence is unlikely to be resolved during the two-day summit in Seoul.
Generating cooperation on the geopolitical conflicts of the day may also prove elusive. All three countries share concern about North Korea’s advancements in its nuclear and missile programmes, but priorities vary widely.
Japan wants resolution of its abductee issue, South Korea seeks Chinese pressure in shaping Pyongyang’s behaviour and China has to balance its concerns about North Korea with the reintroduction of Russian influence in Pyongyang.
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North Korean constitution change raises threat of nuclear war as it declares South its ‘top enemy’
North Korean constitution change raises threat of nuclear war as it declares South its ‘top enemy’
In another area of sharp divergence, Japan and South Korea are strong supporters of Ukraine in the war with Russia while China has remained steadfast in its partnership with Moscow throughout the conflict.
It seems unlikely that any emerging joint statement will make headway in driving new cooperation among the three parties, save for a modest set of talking points on sustainable development, international exchange and the shared problem of dealing with ageing societies.
What, then, is the significance of holding this trilateral summit if the parties will continue to be divided on the most urgent security issues in the world? The biggest deliverable is the event itself, and that the three countries found it enough to their advantage to meet and talk.
US policymakers should take note of the fact that even Washington’s closest allies seek a reasonably secure relationship with China: Northeast Asia is interconnected, despite the range of security concerns.
All three countries are eyeing the coming US presidential election with trepidation and feel an imperative to stabilise their immediate neighbourhood’s geopolitical situation. The possibility of an unpredictable and chaotic foreign policy from Washington may be one of the key drivers for reconvening a trilateral summit that otherwise promises few concrete outcomes.
Daniel Russel is vice-president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and was a US diplomat for 33 years
Emma Chanlett-Avery is director of political-security affairs at the Asia Society Policy Institute
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