Do Je-hae edits news stories as part of the AI team.
Moon to hold summits with Xi, Abe
President Moon Jae-in Yonhap
By Do Je-hae
By Do Je-hae
President Moon Jae-in will attend the Dec. 23 to 24 Korea-China-Japan summit in Chengdu, China, according to the presidential office, Tuesday.
“The President will meet with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and discuss effective measures for cooperation, and the security situation in Northeast Asia, as well as the international political situation,” presidential spokeswoman Ko Min-jung said during a briefing at Cheong Wa Dae.
Aside from the trilateral meeting, Moon is also expected to hold bilateral summits with his counterparts during the visit. “The President will have separate meetings with Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping," a source from the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said Tuesday. Moon could travel to Beijing first for a summit with Xi, followed by the trilateral meeting in Chengdu, and then a summit with Abe before returning to Seoul late Christmas evening.
“The bilateral summits are being arranged and will be announced in due course,” a Cheong Wa Dae aide said.
The summits come at a critical juncture on the Korean Peninsula amid escalating U.S.-North Korea tension ahead of the "year-end" deadline imposed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for resuming bilateral denuclearization negotiations.
The highlight of Moon's visit to China will be the summit with Abe. This will be the first time the two leaders will hold an official meeting since the rapid breakdown of bilateral relations following the October 2018 Supreme Court rulings on the two countries' shared wartime history that angered Tokyo.
They met briefly in a “pull-aside” meeting during an ASEAN event in Thailand, Nov. 4, and agreed on the need for dialogue to discuss bilateral issues.
Their last summit took place during the U.N. General Assembly in September 2018. Abe has refused to meet with Moon unless Seoul rectifies its “breach of international law” that Japan alleges. But bilateral tension has started to cool off a bit following Cheong Wa Dae's recent announcement to “conditionally” maintain a military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan.
The General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), which the U.S. vigorously supports, was set to expire Nov. 23 after Seoul's earlier decision in August not to renew it in response to Japan's retaliatory trade measures against the 2018 rulings.
The two countries are also holding negotiations on trade restrictions imposed by Japan, and Seoul is withholding the proceedings of a WTO complaint against the trade measures.
On the basis of these efforts, both countries will be looking to achieve some agreement to improve bilateral relations during the highly anticipated summit.
But prospects are not entirely positive as Abe has maintained his rigid position that Seoul has breached their 1965 bilateral treaty by not properly addressing the aftermath of the 2018 ruling, which ordered Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean victims forced to work for them during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
There is also intense focus on Moon's possible meeting with Chinese President Xi. The escalating U.S.-China rivalry has resulted in new diplomatic challenges for Korea, such as the dispute over a U.S. missile defense system based here.
Moon is expected to mention measures for normalizing relations which have cooled since Korea's decision to allow the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which Beijing has adamantly protested as a national security threat.
Above all, the President is expected to underline the need for more progress on the easing of China's retaliatory measures imposed on Korean companies in China following the THAAD decision.
With the year-end deadline for denuclearization talks in the coming weeks, Moon is also eager for China's help. During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Seoul last week, he expressed his hopes to meet with Xi in the near future, and underlined the importance of China's role in establishing permanent peace on the peninsula.
“The process for complete denuclearization and permanent peace is at a critical juncture. We ask the Chinese government for its continued support for a peaceful Korean Peninsula,” Moon said during his Dec. 5 meeting with Wang at Cheong Wa Dae.