FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Major Talks Underway among China, Japan, and the Two Koreas
April 19, 2018 (EIRNS)—While Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe was visiting President Trump in Florida, Chinese Foreign Minister and now State Councillor Wang Yi was undertaking the first Tokyo visit by a Chinese Foreign Minister in eight years over April 15-17. He met with Japan’s Premier Abe, Foreign Minister Taro Kono, Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai, former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and other leaders. Wang also attended the first China-Japan economic talks in eight years.
Japan’s NHK broadcaster wrote April 7 that they had learned that a trilateral summit in Japan, with China and South Korea, is in the final planning stage, with a target date of May 9. The last such meeting was held three years ago. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is expected to visit Japan to represent China at this summit, on his first trip to Japan since he became Premier five years ago. Japan Times reported April 15 that Japan wants to confer with China before the coming summit of North Korea and South Kore, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un.
China’s Global Times reported today that more than 300 politicians, scholars and business people from China, Japan and South Korea exchanged views on promoting trilateral cooperation at an international forum in Tokyo yesterday. The forum, hosted by the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat set up by the three governments, had the theme “The Opening of a New Chapter for Trilateral Cooperation—The Past 10 years, the Coming 10 Years.”
Japan Times reported that after meeting Kono, Wang said that the Chinese side “confirmed Japan’s desire to improve its bilateral ties with China.” The two foreign ministers agreed to go forward with mutual visits by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping, although no dates have been set yet.
On Korea, Global Times reported that Song Tao, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on April 14. There are rumors that this visit was in preparation for a visit by Xi Jinping to North Korea.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in let it be known today that North Korea does not consider the withdrawal of all U.S. troops to be a precondition for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. A hotline between the two Korean leaders is to become operational tomorrow.
