Korea, China, Japan agree to push for 'Culture Olympics'

Cultural ministers of South Korea, China and Japan agreed Sunday to push for co-hosting various academic and cultural events timed for the Summer and Winter Olympics to be held in the three countries, Seoul officials said.

South Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Kim Jong-deok and his Chinese and Japanese counterparts reached the agreement at the end of a two-day meeting in this South Korean resort island of Jeju, they said.

South Korea is the host nation of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games and Japan will receive the Olympic baton in two years as they stage the Summer Games in Tokyo. China will host the Winter Games in Beijing in 2022.

In his talks with Chinese Vice Culture Minister Ding Wei and Japanese Culture Minister Hirokazu Matsuno, Kim proposed holding a "Cultural Olympics," which, for example, could consist of symposiums on East Asia culture and exhibition tours of works jointly created by leading artists of the three countries around the periods of the three international sporting events.

The Chinese and Japanese officials agreed to "aggressively cooperate in pushing for" the plan, according to the Jeju Declaration released by the South Korean culture ministry.

The three countries also agreed to send cultural delegations to the host city and hold various cultural events on the global stage to increase the world awareness of East Asian culture.

The ministers also agreed in principle to build a network of cities that have been or will be designated as the "Culture City of East Asia," as a way to keep exchanges going among the towns and prevent them from being one-time events.

Officials said details of the plan will be discussed in next year's meeting.

South Korea's Daegu, Japan's Kyoto and China's Changsha were declared as the "2017 East Asia cultural cities" during the meeting. Under the action plan agreed on in 2012, the three countries decided to name one city each and promote cultural exchanges between the towns starting in 2014. South Korea's Gwangju and Cheongju, China's Quanzhou and Qingdao, and Japan's Yokohama and Niigata were the chosen cities over the past two years.

The three-nation culture ministers' conference, the 8th of its kind, is an intergovernmental cooperative network. During the conference, a culture and arts festival was held, as well as traditional music concerts featuring artists from the three countries. (Yonhap)