Tokyo, May 8 (Agency) Authorities in Japan, China, and South Korea are making preparations to hold a trilateral summit in May—tthe first such summit in nearly five years—aand are expected to discuss trilateral cooperation and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes, Japanese broadcaster NHK has reported, citing government sources. The report cited sources as saying on Tuesday that the meeting, which will be held for the first time in about four and a half years, will bring together Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in Seoul. Kishida is likely to visit South Korea from May 26–27, the broadcaster reported.Japan is seeking to ink an agreement on economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges to promote peace and stability in Asia, the report said. Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes are also expected to be on the agenda of the summit. The Japanese prime minister is reportedly making arrangements to have separate meetings with Li and Yoon on the sidelines of the summit. The foreign ministers of South Korea, China, and Japan met in November 2023 to agree on the date of the next summit.
South Korean media then reported that the ministers had failed to agree on the date but expressed willingness to accelerate the preparation for the summit and continue efforts to make sure that the summit is held “in the near future.” The first China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit was held in the Japanese city of Fukuoka in December 2008. Since then, the leaders of the three countries have met eight times, with the latest summit taking place in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Chengdu. By tradition, the next meeting is to be held in South Korea.However, the next summit was prevented by the COVID-19 pandemic and difficulties in relations between Seoul and Tokyo over a South Korean court’s decision to pay compensation to victims of Japan’s forced labour mobilisation during World War II. Following a compromise decision by the new South Korean government to bear the cost of compensations, Kishida said at a bilateral meeting with Yoon in March 2023 that he shared Seoul’s view of the need to resume trilateral summits as soon as possible.