US looms large as foreign ministers of Japan China and South Korea meet

TOKYO – There were no promises that trilateral foreign ministerial talks between China, Japan and South Korea on March 22 would serve as an precursor to a leaders’ summit within the year.

There were expectations that the summit would materialise, with Japan hoping to host the event within the first half of 2025. However, the timeframe was left vague and non-committal, described only as “at the earliest convenient time”. This underscores the challenges of a trilateral framework that began in 2007, intended to be a yearly affair.

Instead, over 19 years, their leaders have sat down together only nine times – most recently in Seoul in May 2024. The 80-minute meeting in Tokyo on March 22 was the 11th gathering of their foreign ministers.

It also involved the first visit to Japan by a Chinese foreign minister since November 2020, coming as bilateral ties are warming.

On March 22, Mr Wang Yi notably raised the point about the three countries cooperating on trade and stable supply chains, and “working together to build an Asian frontier of scientific and technological innovation”.

“We will work towards restarting talks on a trilateral free trade agreement,” he told a joint news conference. “We will adhere to multilateralism and free trade, and promote economic globalisation in a fairer and more inclusive direction.”

This message was pointed: US President Donald Trump’s promised tariffs may have given renewed impetus to revive discussions on the trade pact. China was also intent on protecting the existing multilateral trading order, which Mr Trump blames for causing the US to be unfairly taken advantage of.

Notably, also on March 22, China and Japan held their first high-level ministerial economic dialogue in six years.

Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya stressed that it was in regional and global interests that the three East