By Kang Seung-woo
South Korea will hold strategic talks with the United States and China later this month, excluding Japan.
According to foreign ministry officials, the tripartite meeting will be the first of its kind _ Japan being out of the picture due to its leaders negating its imperial actions.
There have been three-way talks at a non-governmental level but this is the first at a government level, one ministry official said, adding economy, diplomacy and defense will be included on the agenda.
“Ahead of the summit meetings between Korea and China and between the United States and China, the strategic talks excluding Japan are likely to draw attention from the world,” the official said.
President Park Geun-hye plans to visit China late this month for her first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, her second overseas trip since taking office in February, while Xi will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama this weekend in California.
Reportedly, the Japanese Embassy in Korea is attempting to collect information, expressing its dissatisfaction to the U.S. government.
“The Japanese government wishes the three-nation strategic talks to be scaled down or canceled,” a diplomatic source told a vernacular newspaper.
The governmental talks come as frosty ties between Seoul and Tokyo are being further strained as Japan’s high-profile politicians have denied its wartime actions.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggested that Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula was not an act of aggression.
The government appears to be in no rush to restore ties with Japan, although President Park has stressed the importance of neighborly cooperation regarding North Korea and Northeast Asia.