Without a conducive atmosphere for talks, China-ROK-Japan summit is a nonstarter: China Daily editorial

According to a Yonhap News Agency report on Wednesday, the Republic of Korea, China and Japan have been engaged in discussions to arrange a trilateral summit in Seoul.

First held in December 2008, the summits were suspended after the eighth gathering in December 2019 because of the dispute between the ROK and Japan over forced labor compensation and they did not resume because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talk of reviving the tripartite summit has emerged following a thawing of relations between Seoul and Tokyo after the Yoon Suk-yeol government took office in May last year, which has adopted a let-the-past-be-past attitude toward the historical issues with Japan.

However, the United States' China containment strategy still casts a shadow over the resumption of the summit, as both Japan and the ROK, after Yoon took office, are deeply involved in the US strategy.

Although the ROK and Japan both regard the recent resumption of group tours between them and China as a sign of thawing ties, Japan's stubborn pressing ahead with its discharging of the nuclear-contaminated water from the tsunami-destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea has further strained the already fraught Sino-Japanese relations. It was against this backdrop that the head of Japan's Komeito party, the junior partner in the coalition government and which is friendly to China, postponed his visit to China that was planned for the end of this month.

Japan's discharging of the toxic water into the ocean has also put tremendous pressure on Seoul. Despite the ROK people strongly opposing Japan's irresponsible, selfish and risky move, the Yoon government has not criticized Tokyo and it euphemistically refers to the toxic water as "treated contaminated water".

Although the ROK and Japanese leaders have met with each other on multiple occasions — with their meeting with the US leader earlier this month at Camp David being the latest — Seoul should refrain from attributing the difficulty, if not future failure, of resuming the summit to Beijing.

As Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a meeting of the three countries' foreign ministers in July, with broad common interests, the three countries stand at a crossroad in history, and they should learn from the past, and maintain the right direction of cooperation, eliminating external influences.

There is no doubt that the Yoon government wants to raise the ROK's profile by acting as a bridge between the US club and China. But it must realize that even if the three sides have more to talk about than in 2019, the proposed summit will not materialize in the absence of a proper atmosphere and a solid foundation for productive discussions.