China, Japan and South Korea are set to hold their first summit in about five years with top officials gathering in Seoul next week for talks to improve ties among the economically powerful neighbours.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will attend the summit on Sunday and Monday, an official for Yoon’s office said on Thursday, according to Yonhap News.
The trilateral summits have been on hold since 2019 due to the pandemic and with China feeling pressure as Japan and South Korea moved closer to Washington in recent years. The US and its two key allies in Asia have raised their security cooperation to some of the highest levels in decades, largely on concerns about North Korea’s behaviour and China becoming more assertive militarily.
The meeting will also take place under the shadow of an intensifying US-China rivalry for semiconductor supremacy.
Washington has imposed a wall of restrictions to deny Beijing access to the latest semiconductors, and the Biden administration is seeking to enlist its partners to adopt export controls on sophisticated equipment needed to make the most advanced chips.
The summit highlights the difficult balancing act faced by South Korea and Japan, which both list China as their biggest trading partner. Both also have a security alliance with the US, which stations tens of thousands of troops in the two countries.
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The coming trilateral summit will be the first major test on diplomatic front for Yoon as he tries to maintain the momentum for the remaining three years of his term after suffering a major defeat in parliamentary elections last month.
Yoon and Kishida may be heading to the US in the next few months, possibly to hold a summit with President Joe Biden that will build on an unprecedented security meeting the three had a year ago, according to reports from Kyodo News of Japan and other media.
Their meeting last year at the Camp David presidential retreat in rural Maryland included practical steps such as real-time data sharing to counter threats by North Korea, measures to de-risk global supply chains from exposure to China and moves to bind the trilateral relationship so tightly that it would be hard to unravel.