Leaders of Japan, South Korea and China on Monday met in Seoul in what Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) hailed as a “new start.” The trilateral summit, between Li, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was the first for the three nations since 2019. It concluded with a six-point joint statement. It was never expected to produce any major developments, but has been welcomed nevertheless as a pressure gauge allowing for the reduction of regional tensions.
The elephant in the room, certainly in terms of the promotion of regional peace and reducing impediments to trade and prosperity, was the issue of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) aggressive behavior in the Taiwan Strait. Kishida had spoken of this in a bilateral meeting with Li on Sunday, in which he mentioned “the recent military situation,” referring to the CCP’s “Joint Sword-2024A” military exercise launched around Taiwan just days after President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration.
The meeting also comes as an early draft of the Japanese Ministry of Defense’s annual report says that the military balance in the Taiwan Strait tilting in China’s favor is sparking global concern, several Japanese media outlets reported. However, the Taiwan Strait issue did not make it into the joint statement.
During the summit, Li spoke of the importance of separating politics from economic and trade issues. For him to insist that the two be disentangled as a matter of principle is strange given the economic coercion that Beijing regularly uses against other countries. Just ask Taiwan, Australia and Lithuania, to give only three examples.
For the CCP, politics, economics and national security can never be separated. It agreed to this summit with Japan and South Korea at this time not only because of its own economic woes, but also because of increasing concern over the two countries’ closeness and alignment with the US in security. The CCP is well aware that if it does not succeed in loosening the ties between the three, it risks being constrained in its goal of regional domination.
Then there is the matter of regional peace. During the summit, the three nations were mainly concerned with Northeast Asia, and the bombastic antics of North Korea and the planned missile launch that it announced just prior to the meeting. Kishida and Yoon sought Li’s assistance in bringing to bear China’s influence over North Korea. However, discussing maintaining peace in Northeast Asia while ratcheting up tensions in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait makes no sense at all.
During his inaugural speech, Lai offered an olive branch to the CCP, calling for dialogue while taking a firm stance on Taiwan’s sovereignty and the right of self-determination of the people he had been elected to represent and protect. The CCP responded with “Joint Sword-2024A” as “punishment.”
Monday’s trilateral summit was hailed for reducing tensions in the region, which is important in the present circumstances.
Why is the CCP so insistent on rebuffing any offers of dialogue from Lai? If it is so indignant about Lai’s choice of words in his inaugural speech, why not sit down with him and seek some kind of consensus on how the two governments wish to proceed amicably
There will be no “new start” in cross-strait relations, because the CCP has no intention of budging a single inch.
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