Beijing and Tokyo have agreed to work on improving relations, paving the way for a possible summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the APEC summit, which runs through Wednesday in Beijing. If realized, it would mark the first summit since May 2012.
After two years of worsening relations over territorial rows, regional rivalry and historical disputes, China and Japan on Friday issued a four-point statement in which they agreed to resume political, diplomatic and security dialogues.
While Japan refused to acknowledge that the sovereignty of a group of uninhibited islands ― called Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China ― was in dispute, the statement indicated that Japan was willing to concede that there were different views on the issue.
The statement also said the two sides would establish crisis management mechanisms to prevent incidents around the islands from escalating.
While the agreement did not specifically mention the Japanese prime minister’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, it is said that China demanded Abe’s pledge not to visit Yasukuni Shrine as a precondition for a summit meeting.
No time was lost in mending fences, as the foreign ministers of the two countries met the next day, the first such meeting in two years. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is reported to have asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to arrange a summit between Xi and Abe.
The prospect of a China-Japan summit is causing anxiety among some in Korea who worry that Korea may become a diplomatic outcast in the region as China and Japan engage in reconciliation, with no thaw in sight between Korea and Japan.
President Park Geun-hye has repeatedly refused Abe’s requests for a summit, insisting Japan must first resolve the issue of Japanese wartime military sexual slavery before such a meeting can take place. The latest offer of a summit came Thursday, when Japanese Ambassador Koro Bessho read a message from Abe at a private bilateral cooperative committee meeting. In the message, Abe called for “dialogue at all levels, including top leaders, without preconditions.”
Park and Abe will be attending regional summits in Beijing and Myanmar this week and Australia the following week. It is unlikely that a Korea-Japan summit will take place during these meetings, but that does not rule out continued working-level talks. Both countries must exercise political and diplomatic finesse, creating the right atmosphere for a productive and meaningful summit.
