China-Japan-ROK cooperation: Joint efforts help address common challenges
By Liu Yi |
chinawatch.cn |
Updated: 2019-04-15 14:50
On Friday when the 15th round of talks on the China-Japan-ROK free trade zone kicked off in Tokyo, a high-level seminar was held in Beijing celebrating the 20th anniversary of China-ROK-Japan cooperation.
The FTZ talks have switched to the fast track, said Kong Xuanyou, Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs at the seminar, adding that a high-level, reciprocal FTZ agreement is expected to erase market barriers and inject vitality into the regional market.
China, Japan and Republic of Korea collectively account for 66 percent of the economic aggregation in Asia, and for 24 percent of the world's total. The trade volume among the three countries stands at $700 billion, contributing to regional prosperity and global development as well.
The trilateral cooperation which is taking tangible shape originated from a "breakfast meeting", attended by then Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, then Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi and then ROK president Kim Dae-Jung when they attended the ASEAN+3 summit in the Philippines in November 1999.
The trilateral cooperation mechanism was carried out under the framework of ASEAN+3 until December 2008 when three heads of states or administration met in Fukuoka, Japan, the first time held outside of the ASEAN countries.
In last 20 years a total of 97 trilateral meetings, including two summits, have been held, greatly facilitating the political trust-building and the managing of affairs at the working level.
However, it is urgent to enrich the connotation and expand the sectors of the cooperation mechanism, said Tai Hwan Lee, the president of Korea-China Thinknet. He said the cooperation should be expanded to emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and 5G, and even to the political and security sectors.
At the seminar which was focused on promoting trilateral cooperation and integrated development, participating scholars discussed the challenges facing the relations between the three major Northeastern Asian countries, and called for joint efforts to address common challenges amid rising uncertainties worldwide.
With regard to issues affecting the relations between the three countries, Zhang Yunling, the director of the International Studies Department of the China Academy of Social Sciences, suggested that bilateral issues be dealt with at the regional level, and competition be transformed into competitive cooperation, so as to ensure deepening cooperation and economic integration.
Shinichiro Nagano, professor emeritus at Daitobunka University, held that the diplomatic issues should not be mixed up with domestic issues, which would only lead to turmoil instead of solutions. As one of the first advocates of trilateral cooperation, Nagano is optimistic about the future in light of the shared cultural background.
Trust-building is of primary significance in trilateral cooperation. Jiang Ruiping, a professor and former vice-president of China Foreign Affairs University, said pointing to the plummeting bilateral trade volumes after the Japanese government purchased the Diaoyu Islands in 2012 as proof.
He explained that given the fact that the three countries are geographically connected and interdependent in the economic sphere, political trust had to serve as the bedrock of the trilateral relations.
Lee Choong Myon, a minister of the Embassy of ROK in Beijing, said at the seminar that the institutional construction of the trilateral cooperation, which is the most important, lagged behind compared with the robust economic and trade relations. And he suggested the holding of summit meetings regularly to strengthen mutual understanding, which could be the key to closer, more pragmatic trilateral cooperations and could unleash the potential of the trilateral cooperation mechanism.
On Friday when the 15th round of talks on the China-Japan-ROK free trade zone kicked off in Tokyo, a high-level seminar was held in Beijing celebrating the 20th anniversary of China-ROK-Japan cooperation.
The FTZ talks have switched to the fast track, said Kong Xuanyou, Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs at the seminar, adding that a high-level, reciprocal FTZ agreement is expected to erase market barriers and inject vitality into the regional market.
China, Japan and Republic of Korea collectively account for 66 percent of the economic aggregation in Asia, and for 24 percent of the world's total. The trade volume among the three countries stands at $700 billion, contributing to regional prosperity and global development as well.
The trilateral cooperation which is taking tangible shape originated from a "breakfast meeting", attended by then Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, then Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi and then ROK president Kim Dae-Jung when they attended the ASEAN+3 summit in the Philippines in November 1999.
The trilateral cooperation mechanism was carried out under the framework of ASEAN+3 until December 2008 when three heads of states or administration met in Fukuoka, Japan, the first time held outside of the ASEAN countries.
In last 20 years a total of 97 trilateral meetings, including two summits, have been held, greatly facilitating the political trust-building and the managing of affairs at the working level.
However, it is urgent to enrich the connotation and expand the sectors of the cooperation mechanism, said Tai Hwan Lee, the president of Korea-China Thinknet. He said the cooperation should be expanded to emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and 5G, and even to the political and security sectors.
At the seminar which was focused on promoting trilateral cooperation and integrated development, participating scholars discussed the challenges facing the relations between the three major Northeastern Asian countries, and called for joint efforts to address common challenges amid rising uncertainties worldwide.
With regard to issues affecting the relations between the three countries, Zhang Yunling, the director of the International Studies Department of the China Academy of Social Sciences, suggested that bilateral issues be dealt with at the regional level, and competition be transformed into competitive cooperation, so as to ensure deepening cooperation and economic integration.
Shinichiro Nagano, professor emeritus at Daitobunka University, held that the diplomatic issues should not be mixed up with domestic issues, which would only lead to turmoil instead of solutions. As one of the first advocates of trilateral cooperation, Nagano is optimistic about the future in light of the shared cultural background.
Trust-building is of primary significance in trilateral cooperation. Jiang Ruiping, a professor and former vice-president of China Foreign Affairs University, said pointing to the plummeting bilateral trade volumes after the Japanese government purchased the Diaoyu Islands in 2012 as proof.
He explained that given the fact that the three countries are geographically connected and interdependent in the economic sphere, political trust had to serve as the bedrock of the trilateral relations.
Lee Choong Myon, a minister of the Embassy of ROK in Beijing, said at the seminar that the institutional construction of the trilateral cooperation, which is the most important, lagged behind compared with the robust economic and trade relations. And he suggested the holding of summit meetings regularly to strengthen mutual understanding, which could be the key to closer, more pragmatic trilateral cooperations and could unleash the potential of the trilateral cooperation mechanism.
