Key summit meetings looking increasingly unfeasible within the year

President Moon Jae-in departs for Chengu, China, the venue of the 2019 Korea-China-Japan summit from an airport in Beijing, Dec. 23, 2019, after a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae-

By Do Je-hae

This has been a bad year for summitry due to COVID-19, but Cheong Wa Dae has nonetheless shown strong determination for arranging a Korea-Japan-China summit as well as a Korea-China summit.

With the end of the year only weeks away, the two summits are looking increasingly unfeasible within the year. On the outside, the continued surge in COVID-19 cases is a big reason for further delaying both occasions, but when looking closely, unresolved differences are making it more difficult to finalize them.

One of the questions that comes up most often during meetings with senior presidential aides at the Office of Public Communication is when the trilateral meeting will be held. Cheong Wa Dae says that it has not made a conclusion on whether the meeting can be held within the year or early next year, before the start of the Lunar New Year in February. "We have not yet reached a conclusion on the Korea-Japan-China meeting," presidential spokesperson Kang Min-seok said.

Recently some Japanese media reports said that the meeting had been postponed until next year, saying that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was done with overseas trips this year following his visits to Vietnam and Indonesia in October due to the resurgence of COVID-19.

No progress with Japan

The Korea-Japan-China summit was one of the topics of the meeting between President Moon Jae-in and Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Korea last month. "As the chair country of the 9th Korea-China-Japan summit, our government hopes to work together to hold the summit as soon as possible," Moon said during Nov. the 26 meeting at Cheong Wa Dae with the Chinese foreign minister. But there has not been any headway regarding arrangements for the trilateral summit with Japan.

The deciding factor in the realization of the trilateral meeting is Suga. Concerns are rising that the meeting will fall part if Japan decides against participation because it will also affect China's decision, according to some analysts. "If Suga does not come, neither will Chinese Premier Li Keqiang," Woo Su-keun, vice chancellor at Concordia International University, told The Korea Times. "From the Japanese point of view, the biggest priority is to stop the court-ordered liquidation of Japanese firms' assets. If this happens before the trilateral meeting, bilateral relations will freeze and Suga cannot come to Korea."

"If the Japanese leader does not come, the trilateral meeting cannot happen. If the meeting did take place, and then the ruling is implemented, Suga will face backlash and rise of anti-Korea sentiment in Japan. When considering these possible developments, it will be difficult for Suga to decide to come to Korea."

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Dec. 4. The Korea-Japan-China summit planned to take place in Seoul is facing hurdles, particularly due to Suga's hesitance to visit Korea amid the deadlock in bilateral bilateral relations. EPA-Yonhap

Therefore, Cheong Wa Dae sees the urgency to convince the Japanese leader on the forced labor issue in order for the three-way summit to take place in coming weeks. One of the reasons that Seoul has seen the trilateral meeting as a diplomatic priority is because it provides a platform for bilateral summits as well. Moon met with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the trilateral summit last year on Christmas Eve in Chengdu, China, and this temporarily softened the mood between the two countries.

In this regard, President Moon Jae-in has appointed a new ambassador to Japan, Kang Chang-il, a former four-term lawmaker of the ruling party and former head of the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians' Union, in hopes of a breakthrough in the deadlocked bilateral negotiations to settle the dispute over the wartime forced labor issue. Also, high-level officials including National Intelligence Service chief Park Jie-won and Park Chul-min, former presidential secretary for foreign policy at the National Security Office (NSO) have visited Japan in recent weeks in order to close the gap between the two countries' respective stances on the wartime forced labor issue. Suga has said he will boycott the trilateral meeting without an acceptable solution from Seoul to settle the dispute stemming from the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that ordered Japanese companies to compensate the victims of forced labor during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of Korea.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, looks around the guest house at the National Assembly, Nov. 27. His visit has shown Beijing's lack of interest in realizing Xi's visit to Korea any time soon amid the rising U.S.-China competition. Korea Times photo by Oh Dae-geun

Prospects are also unclear for the Korea-China summit, which Cheong Wa Dae had eyed as a diplomatic priority particularly since Moon's summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in December 2019, before Moon attended the Korea-Japan-China summit in Chengdu.

New factors hampering Xi's visit

At the time, a presidential spokesperson had said that Xi's visit to Korea was almost "certain." But the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalating U.S.-China competition have emerged as new negative factors in the realization of Xi's reciprocal visit to Korea. Moon has visited Beijing twice to meet with Xi since taking office in May 2017, but Xi's last visit was six years ago during the previous Park Geun-hye administration.

Some experts say with the change in the circumstances and dynamics in the geopolitical situation, Seoul should be more prudent in pursuing the summit with the Chinese leader sometime soon.

"Summit meetings are something that should happen when both countries are clear about what they are willing to offer to the other country," Kim Heung-kyu, professor of political science and diplomacy at Ajou University and director of the U.S.-China Policy Institute, told The Korea Times. "Xi's visit to Korea will entail a large delegation and that is not a simple undertaking considering the COVID-19 situation. In addition, Xi's visit before the launch of the Biden administration in the U.S. is burdensome for both Seoul and Beijing, so neither side is in the position to actively pursue it at the moment."

Some experts predict that the timing of Xi's visit could depend on the upcoming Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in July, with him making stops to Seoul and Tokyo on the occasion of the Olympics.

The dominant view after Wang's visit is that Beijing is not placing a similar level of importance as Seoul to Xi's visit to Korea, and therefore the local media attention to Xi's possible visit has been reduced following Wang's visit.