Japan-South Korea-China Trilateral Resumes – Analysis

The 11th Korea-Japan-China Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was hosted by Japan and held in Tokyo, Japan, on 22 March 2025, with Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul, and his Japanese and Chinese counterparts, Iwaya Takeshi and Wang Yi, in attendance. The Korea-Japan-China Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Meeting has been held since the first meeting in Jeju in June 2007, with the 10th meeting taking place in Busan in November 2023.

From a peace and conflict studies perspective, such diplomatic engagements underscore the complexity of regional geopolitics, where historical grievances, security dilemmas, and economic interdependence create a delicate balance. The meeting represents a cautious yet significant step toward institutionalizing dialogue in a region fraught with unresolved tensions. Whether this trilateral can build sustainable cooperation or merely serve as a temporary mechanism for crisis management remains a critical question.

Since they held their first stand-alone, trilateral summit, the leaders of the three countries had been supposed to meet annually. But their summit has faced on-again, off-again suspensions and remained stalled since 2019. Their relationships are intertwined with a slew of complicated, touchy issues. Both South Korea and Japan are key US military allies, hosting a total of 80,000 American troops on their territories. Their recent push to beef up a trilateral security cooperation with the United States has provoked China, which is extremely sensitive to any moves it perceives as seeking to contain its rise to dominance in Asia.

After a four-year gap, South Korea, Japan, and China resumed their education ministerial talks on 15 June 2024, in Seoul. Led by South Korea’s Education Minister Lee Ju-ho, alongside Japan’s Masahito Moriyama and China’s Huai Jinpeng, the discussions focused on strengthening cooperation in education and promoting student exchanges. Since its inception in 2016, the trilateral education ministers’ meeting has served as a platform for collaboration among the three nations.

In the latest Foreign Ministers’meeting chaired by Japan, the countries reviewed the progress in trilateral cooperation since the 9th Trilateral Summit in May 2025 and exchange comprehensive views on the way forward for the development of trilateral cooperation as well as other major regional and international issues. On the occasion of this meeting, bilateral talks between Korea and Japan, as well as between Korea and China, were also held. The fact that bilateral talks were held alongside the trilateral discussions suggests that diplomatic efforts are being pursued at multiple levels. Multilateralism, particularly in conflict-prone regions, is a peace building tool that can normalize diplomatic exchanges, prevent crisis escalation, and reinforce regional stability through dialogue mechanisms.

The three Northeast Asian neighbours are closely linked economically and culturally with one another and account for about 25% of the global gross domestic product. But efforts to boost trilateral cooperation have often hit a snag because of a mix of issues including historical disputes stemming from Japan’s wartime aggression and the strategic competition between China and the United States.

This trilateral was held amid the tariff war unleashed by the US President Donald Trump and to discuss domestic policy and geopolitical uncertainties amid US-China rivalry. This was the first such talks since 2023 and the 11^th trilateral that South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul, Japan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Tokyo to discuss cooperation and exchange opinions on topics including the regional and international situation.    

The three-way meetings are an accomplishment for Japan, which has historical and territorial disputes with both China and South Korea. The three foreign ministers sought common ground on areas like low birth rates, natural disasters and cultural exchanges at a time of growing tensions. The meeting also focused on plans for a trilateral summit later in 2025. All three ministers agreed that the cooperation between the three Asian nations was important as the world faces tensions and divisions. Indeed, cooperation between the three in areas of common challenges will set a good model for global cooperation. They also discussed North Korea’s missile and nuclear development, Russia’s war on Ukraine and other regional and global issues. 

After the three foreign ministers met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba who too reiterated that cooperation between the three countries will serve their national interests and regional and global peace, delegations from Japan and China met separately to hold their first high-level economic dialogue since April 2019. Iwaya and Wang too held separate bilateral talks with Cho.

The two important US allies in Asia – Japan and South Korea – have rapidly improved ties in recent times, thanks to forward-looking initiatives by the former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. South Korea is awaiting a Constitutional Court ruling on whether to remove President Yoon Suk Yeol from office over his botched martial law declaration in December. While in office, Yoon pushed for closer ties with Japan, attempting to bury the historical hatchet in order to present a united trilateral front with the United States against North Korea’s growing military provocations.

This does not mean to say all disputes are resolved. Issues such as comfort women and wartime compensation issues continue to simmer. The differences on such issues have not deterred both to find common ground as both share mutual concerns over China’s growing threat and aggressive footprint in the region. Yet, Tokyo and Beijing agreed in December 2024 to improve ties in spite of their differences, including over a group of uninhabited islands both claims, as well as China’s territorial disputes with other countries in the South China Sea.   

The three leaders agreed that peace on the Korean Peninsula was a shared responsibility and therefore pledged to promote peace and cooperation. The talks followed a rare trilateral summit in May 2024 in Seoul where the neighbours — driven by historical and territorial disputes — agreed to deepen ties and restated their goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. The latest trilateral becomes more important as it came on the backdrop of looming tariff war by President Trump over the region, and as concerns mount over North Korea’s weapons tests and its deployment of troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.  

The three Asian neighbours held their last foreign ministers’ dialogue in South Korea’s southern city of Busan in November 2023, attended by Wang and then Foreign Ministers Park Jin and Yoko Kamikawa. The previous three-way summit took place in Seoul in May last year between President Yoon Suk Yeol, then Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese Premier Li Qiang. 

In particular, Cho Tae-yul stressed that illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea must be immediately halted. Seoul and Tokyo typically take a stronger line against North Korea than China, which remains one of Pyongyang’s most important allies and economic benefactors. Cho reminded his counterparts of Japan and China that they ought to carry out UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea and make efforts to stop the North’s provocations and bring about its complete denuclearisation. 

North Korea’s growing arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles poses a major security threat to South Korea and Japan. But China, North Korea’s last major ally and biggest source of aid, is suspected of avoiding fully enforcing United Nations sanctions on North Korea and shipping clandestine assistance to the North to help its impoverished neighbour stay afloat and continue to serve as a bulwark against US influences on the Korean Peninsula.

Any moves by Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing to ramp up trilateral cooperation and boost economic ties augurs well for future agreements on more difficult topics such as Kim Jong-un’s nuclear weapons.  The three leaders committed to adhere promoting future-oriented cooperation as stressed by Iwaya, who stated that the region is now at the turning point in history. Therefore amid division and confrontation, dialogue and cooperation must be the preferred option.  

Interestingly, the shadow of history never goes away as directly or indirectly it does surface its ugly head in any dialogue process. Even this time, the Chinese foreign minister Wang reminded that the year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the World War II, and that “only by sincerely reflecting on history can we better build the future”, an oblique references to Japan’s wartime activities. 

The Yasukuni shrine is another issue that continues to trouble Japan’s ties with both China and South Korea. The shrine includes 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal among the 2.5 million war dead honoured there. When Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba sent an offering to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine in October 2024, it drew criticism from South Korea and China which view the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s militaristic past. Offerings to the shrine – a rite commonly made to coincide with autumn and spring festivals – by Japanese prime ministers have often angered the two East Asian neighbours.

It was the first time that Ishiba made such an offering. South Korea expressed “deep disappointment and regret” that Japanese leaders have made such gestures or visited the shrine. Similarly, China urged Tokyo to “face up to and reflect on the history of aggression, to be prudent in its words and actions on the Yasukuni Shrine and other historical issues. Neither South Korea nor China mentioned Ishiba by name in their statements.

There are other issues between Japan and South Korea as well stemming from the 1910-45 period when Japan colonised the Korean Peninsula. Ties between South Korea and Japan deteriorated severely in past years due to issues originating during this period. But their relations have warmed significantly in recent months as the two countries took a series of major steps to move beyond history wrangling and boost bilateral cooperation in the face of North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats and other shared challenges. Yet bilateral relations remain hostage to certain issues of that difficult period. Recently, when a Seoul court ordered Japan to financially compensate Koreans forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during the colonial period, Japan strongly reacted calling the court verdict “extremely regrettable” and “absolutely unacceptable,” saying it violates international law and past bilateral agreements. Yet efforts are being made to move on.

While diplomatic engagement is progressing, unresolved historical narratives continue to act as a barrier to full reconciliation. Transitional justice mechanisms, truth commissions, or regional frameworks for historical reconciliation could serve as pathways toward sustainable peace building.

In the latest trilateral, the Ukraine issue was raised. Iwaya warned that unilaterally changing the status quo by force was unacceptable. He stressed the importance of international unity, emphasizing that such actions would ultimately be counterproductive.

Other issues that were discussed impinging the region were climate change, aging populations and trade, disaster relief, and science and technology. Though China, and to a lesser extent Japan and South Korea, have been hit by the tariffs imposed by Trump, none of the ministers addressed the issue directly in their statements to the press. The trio agreed to accelerate coordination for the next summit between the three leaders later in 2025. While trilateral dialogues have been ongoing for over a decade, this round carried heightened significance due to the new US situation.    

Expressing satisfaction with the discussion, Iwaya confirmed a commitment by China made in September 2024 to allow imports of marine products and asked about expanding imports of Japanese agricultural products, including beef and rice. In 2023, China banned Japanese seafood imports after Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean. China said in September 2024 it would “gradually resume” importing seafood from Japan but this has yet to begin, which is why Iwaya had to remind Wang. Any outside observer on China’s foreign and economic policies would notice that Beijing has been working actively to improve relations with other major and middle powers amid growing frictions with the US. 

Beijing is concerned over the results of recent surveys that show Japanese firms in China have become more pessimistic about doing business in China due to spike in geopolitical tensions, fraying bilateral ties and stiff competition from Chinese firms. At the same time, Beijing is aware that it is in Japan’s interests to maintain stable economic relations with China because of the scale and close proximity with China. Large Japanese companies are still making profits from China, so Japan cannot afford not to do business with China.  

While economic cooperation is often framed as a stabilizing factor in international relations, it remains vulnerable to geopolitical shifts and national security concerns. The interplay between diplomacy, historical memory, and economic competition in this trilateral meeting reflects broader challenges in peace building efforts. Ultimately, the sustainability of regional peace will depend on whether these diplomatic interactions translate into long-term trust-building mechanisms or remain reactive measures to immediate crises.

About the authors:

• Dr. Rajaram Panda is former Senior Fellow at PMML, Ministry of Culture, New Delhi. Earlier, he was Senior Fellow at MP-IDSA, Minister of Defence, Lok Sabha Research Fellow, and ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan.    
• Ms. Upasha Kumari, Member of CAD, Delhi Public School Ghaziabad Society, advances academic excellence and curricular governance across DPSG schools. A former Education and Public Policy Consultant and Political Science educator, she specializes in Education, Political Science, and Peace & Conflict Studies.