Politicians, experts and scholars call for the abandonment of ideological confrontation and closer cooperation among China, Japan and South Korea as they believe it's critical to ensure regional peace and stability and boost the common development of East Asia amid turbulent geopolitical conflict.

They made the remarks at Monday's International Forum for Trilateral Cooperation 2023 among China, Japan and South Korea, an annual event organized by the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS).

Wang Yi, the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee delivered a speech while attending the forum, calling for deepening China-Japan-South Korea cooperation amid the post-pandemic era.

The forum was held in Qingdao, eastern China's Shandong Province, and was aimed to revitalize trilateral cooperation in strategic communication, economic and trade connectivity and people-to-people exchanges.

Thawing relations 

Relations among the three countries have been sour for years. Among the factors are the long-standing wartime labor issue between Tokyo and Seoul, Japan's chip export curb to China and its nuclear-contaminated water release plan, which has triggered strong discontent from neighboring countries. 

Besides, Seoul's leaning toward the U.S. in its foreign policy, disputes over military activities in the East China Sea and contentious island territorial claims among the three countries have also contributed to the tension.

However, there are signs of thaws of trilateral relations in recent months as they confront shared challenges from geopolitical tensions and slowing global economic growth. 

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol traveled to Tokyo in March to meet his Japanese counterpart Prime Minster Fumio Kishida, and they struck a deal to resolve the forced labor dispute. It was the first official visit of a South Korean president to Tokyo in 12 years.

Soon after, in early April, foreign ministers of China and Japan held talks in Beijing. Both agreed to manage conflicts and differences to avoid a further downward turn in bilateral relations.

The meetings are seen as further raising prospects of the resumption of the stalled trilateral leader's summit, an annual three-way summit that was first held in December 2008, but was suspended after the eighth gathering in December 2019 following a dispute between Korea and Japan over the forced labor issue and the COVID-19 pandemic.

A senior official of South Korea's Foreign Ministry said in April that its president had expressed hope to resume the stalled summit and it could take place this year if there were no "major obstacles".

China had voiced support for the summit, with Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of China's Foreign Ministry saying that China backs South Korea's proposal of holding the trilateral leaders summit. 

"As close neighbors and important development partners, China, Japan and South Korea should make joint efforts to ensure the stable and sustainable development of trilateral cooperation and promote regional peace, stability and prosperity," Wang said last month.

Broad cooperation space

Over the past two decades, China, Japan and South Korea have established 21 kinds of ministry-level meetings and more than 70 dialogue mechanisms to deepen trilateral cooperation. The trade volume among the three countries increased from $130 billion in 1999 to over $720 billion in 2018, and their total share of the global economy also rose from 17 percent to 24 percent in this period, according to official data.

Experts say the three major economies in the Asia region share broad interests and have vast cooperation space, and they should become engines driving Asia's development and prosperity. 

Analysts also spoke highly of the role of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in boosting economic collaboration, saying RCEP will enhance the resilience of the supply chain and industrial chain in the region, and drive the optimization and improvement of investment in the region.

"The RCEP is of special significance to China-Japan-South Korea cooperation as it brings the three countries into the same free trade arrangement for the first time and has brought many dividends to their development," said TCS Secretary-General Ou Boqian last Thursday.

She added that though the three countries compete in some areas, such as electric cars and phone manufacturing, they are increasingly complementary in service trade, so the three countries should optimize industrial division and increase cooperation in new economic fields such as digital economy, green economy, cross-border e-commerce and health care industry.

Xing Haiming, Chinese Ambassador to South Korea in a recent speech also stressed the benefits of China-South Korea cooperation. He cited a report by Korea International Trade Association, saying as China's economy further recovers in the second quarter, South Korea's GDP will increase by 0.16 percent due to this, and its exports will also increase by 0.55 percent, equivalent to 31 percent of last year's export growth. 

"This fully proves that China's economic recovery and development will bring greater development opportunities to neighboring countries, including South Korea," Xing said.

The Research Institute of the Bank of China released a report in April, predicting that China's second-quarter GDP growth is expected to be around 7.6 percent compared with the same period in 2022. China's first-quarter GDP growth stands at 4.5 percent.

Ou said that to further expand and boost trilateral cooperation, the three countries need to pay great respect to each other's core interests and major concerns, and enhance political mutual trust. Besides, strengthening cultural cooperation and people-to-people exchanges can also deepen mutual understanding among the people of the three countries and lay a solid foundation for the sustained development of trilateral cooperation.