Weeks ahead of a planned U.S.-Japan-South Korea summit in the United States, Beijing is making its own push for increased engagement with its two Asian neighbors. Experts say the move is in concert with Beijing’s efforts to bolster ties with North Korea and Russia.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi disclosed the Chinese initiative at a briefing for Japanese media last week, saying China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, had proposed holding high-level talks with Seoul and Tokyo.
The proposal appears aimed at undermining strategic ties between the United States and its two key allies, which vowed after two summits this year to hasten security and economic cooperation.
The growing closeness, after years of friction based on historic grievances, is seen as a response to mounting missile and nuclear threats from North Korea and China’s growing assertiveness in the region.
Hayashi said Wang proposed the trilateral talks when the two met at an ASEAN meeting in Jakarta earlier in July. He said he had agreed, though no date has been set.
In May, President Joe Biden invited South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a trilateral summit. It will be held August 18 at Camp David, Maryland, the presidential mountain retreat about 60 miles northwest of Washington.
Three-way talks among Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo have been stalled since December 2019 because of frayed ties between Japan and South Korea and the growing geopolitical rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA’s Korean Service on Monday that Beijing wants to improve trilateral cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo.
“As close neighbors, China, Japan and the ROK have every reason to work together to maintain the political foundation of bilateral relations and stay committed to the steady, sound and sustainable growth of trilateral cooperation,” he said. South Korea’s official name is the Republic of Korea (ROK).
At an annual forum held in Qingdao, China, on July 3, Wang urged South Korean and Japanese attendees to align with Beijing to revamp Asia by “restoring normal trilateral cooperation and improving and developing trilateral relations.”
Evans Revere, a former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs during the George W. Bush administration, said it is important for Seoul and Tokyo to maintain channels of communications with Beijing but not lose sight of its agenda of posing challenges to them and their ties with Washington.
“China’s goals include achieving regional dominance, reducing the power and efficacy of the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliance, and preventing Washington, Seoul and Tokyo from advancing their shared agenda in support of a free and open region,” said Revere.
“The East Asia region is at a critical turning point. Seoul, Tokyo and Washington must not fail to stay in close synch as they move through this difficult period,” he said.
Beijing’s efforts to bolster closer ties with North Korea and Russia included a Pyongyang visit by senior Chinese officials last month. Beijing and Pyongyang vowed to revitalize relations to “a new high stage through close strategic and tactical collaboration” through “socialist construction.”
The Chinese delegation led by Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, was making the first official trip to the country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
An official Russian delegation headed by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also visited Pyongyang to attend the 70th anniversary celebration of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War in July 1953.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gave tours of a military weapons exhibition to both delegations and had them seated next to him watching a military parade featuring high-end weapons.
“Beijing believes it is locked in a long-term ‘struggle’ against the United States and the West – including the ROK and Japan – and that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Kim are key partners in that struggle,” said Daniel Russel, who served as the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the Obama administration.
“In fact, Chinese leaders may believe that the threats posed by North Korea and Russia serve China’s interests by diverting and draining Western resources,” said Russel, who is now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
Experts said Beijing’s proposed talks with Seoul and Tokyo were motivated in part by economic difficulties it faces. Global investors are leaving Chinese markets, and companies are shifting their supply chains in China to places like India and Vietnam.
Russel said, “Bolstering [South] Korean and Japanese investment and manufacturing in China” and “trying to peel [South] Korea and Japan away from close alignment with the United States, particularly in restricting exports of high-end technology that China can use in its military modernization program,” are key goals Beijing wants to advance through talks.
Joseph DeTrani, the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks in the early 2000s that included China and Japan, said China wants to “make the case that any movement toward economic decoupling with Beijing could harm South Korea, China’s major trading partner,” as well as Japan.
DeTrani said, “It’s unlikely that China’s efforts with Seoul and Tokyo would negatively affect Japan's and South Korea’s close allied relationship with the U.S.”
