(Bloomberg) — China urged South Korea to maintain stable supply chains as the countries began their first tripartite summit with Japan since 2019, with Premier Li Qiang also meeting the head of Samsung Electronics Co.
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Li told President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul on Sunday that China wants the two to be reliable neighbors, helping the other prosper, according to a joint report. Li also told Yoon that both sides should avoid turning economic issues into political issues, and that Beijing welcomes South Korean companies, including Samsung, to expand investment in China, the official Xinhua news agency said. .
Li told Samsung Chairman Jay Y. Lee that China will always remain open to foreign companies and promised to improve the business environment, Xinhua reported. Lee promised to contribute to mutually beneficial cooperation between South Korea and China, according to Xinhua.
The three leaders had dinner together on Sunday and will meet for a tripartite summit on Monday, followed by a session with business leaders after that.
Read more: North Korea notifies Japan of imminent satellite launch: Kyodo
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also arrived in Seoul on Sunday and met with Li and Yoon. The Japanese leader and Yoon agreed to continue the shuttle diplomacy that symbolized the warm ties between the neighbors and exchanged views on North Korea. They also agreed to accelerate cooperation on green energy in areas such as hydrogen and ammonia.
Kishida’s talks with Li were a bit more blunt when he called on China to release detained Japanese citizens and raised concerns about China’s actions in the East China Sea, where the two’s ships sail close to disputed islands almost daily. Kishida told reporters that he also called on Beijing to end a ban on food imports from Japan in response to Tokyo’s release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.
Read more: China bans Japanese seafood due to nuclear wastewater release
Shortly before the formal summit, Japan said North Korea said it planned to launch a rocket to deploy a satellite. Japan, South Korea and the United States said North Korea’s space program helps develop ballistic missiles and that the announcement of a launch is expected to draw attention to Pyongyang’s weapons program at the trilateral meeting.
The three countries are geographically close, but summits like this are relatively rare. The leaders were supposed to meet annually, but the meeting was suspended for almost five years due to the pandemic and geopolitical tensions. Tokyo and Seoul moved closer to the US during this period, worrying China.
While the summit brings risks and rewards for all three, the risks are high for China. It is likely to try to pressure Japan and South Korea not to join U.S.-led efforts to further restrict exports of advanced chipmaking equipment after Tokyo imposed export controls last year. Japan has resisted US pressure to further restrict sales to China. The Biden administration is also trying to include South Korea in the deal that includes the Netherlands.
“This is an opportunity for China to try to improve relations with Japan and South Korea without the United States,” said Naoko Aoki, associate political scientist at Rand Corp.
After Yoon took office about two years ago, South Korea saw an improvement in ties with Japan after several years of tensions. The two US allies have stepped up security cooperation with Washington and last year met with President Joe Biden for an unprecedented trilateral summit.
Tokyo and Seoul have also expressed concern about security in the Taiwan Strait, and Kishida said he raised the issue in his talks with Li. Tensions in the region rose as China held its most expansive military exercises in a year around Taiwan, in last week, increasing pressure on the island’s new president, Lai Ching-te, just days after taking office.
Read more: China holds largest military exercises in a year in Taiwan
Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul will seek to cooperate in six key areas when they meet on Monday, including sustainable development, people-to-people exchanges, as well as economy and trade. Japan and South Korea have also sought China’s help in controlling North Korea’s atomic ambitions.
“If there is any concrete achievement this time, I hope it will be in economic and other non-security issues,” Aoki said. “I don’t think the meeting will change anyone’s security calculus,” she said, pointing to a significant gulf between Beijing and the other two countries on issues including North Korea and Taiwan.
Yoon and Kishida may travel to the US in the coming months, possibly to hold a summit with Biden that will follow up on the meeting they had about a year ago, according to reports from Kyodo News and other media outlets.
Read more: Five conclusions from the US, Japan and South Korea Summit
Their meeting last year, at the Camp David presidential retreat in rural Maryland, included practical steps such as sharing real-time data to combat threats from North Korea, measures to reduce risk to supply chains global due to exposure to China and measures to bind the trilateral relationship so tightly that it would be difficult to unravel.
–With assistance from James Mayger, Sam Kim, Daisuke Sakai, Shamim Adam, Phila Siu and Heejin Kim.
(Updates with North Korea satellite launch warning in paragraph seven.)
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