East Asia powers show united front on N.Korea, economy
10 Oct 2009 03:29:52 GMT Source: Reuters
By Yoko Nishikawa BEIJING, Oct 10 (Reuters) - China, Japan and South Korea vowed to seek an early restart to talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions, and also presented a united front on regional economic cooperation at a summit on Saturday. The broad promises to work together on security and economic issues came at a meeting between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has made strengthening regional ties a keynote of his foreign policy. "We will make joint efforts with other parties for an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks, so as to safeguard peace and stability in Northeast Asia," said the joint statement issued by the leaders at the end of their talks in the Chinese capital. "The three countries remain committed to the development of an East Asian community based on the principles of openness, transparency and inclusiveness as a long term goal." The vows to cooperate on North Korea and on economic growth are unlikely to make any immediate difference. But they underscored the growing pull for the three Asian powers to set aside some of their friction and seek common ground. The show of unity may also add pressure on North Korea to return to nuclear disarmament negotiations. Beijing is the closest the isolated North has to an ally. The combined GDP of Japan, China and South Korea accounts for 16 percent of the world's total output, with Japan and China respectively the world's second- and third-biggest economies. In April, a month before its second nuclear test, North Korea said the six-party talks -- among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States -- were defunct. It walked away from those talks last December. HEAVILY HEDGED This week, North Korea's top leader Kim Jong-il offered visiting Chinese Premier Wen a heavily hedged statement that his government could return to multilateral negotiations, possibly the six-party talks, provided it first saw satisfactory progress in any two-way talks with the United States. [ID:nSP478096] Washington has said it is open to talks with Pyongyang as long as that leads to a resumption of the six-party talks. Hatoyama, who took office on Sept. 16 after his Democratic Party trounced the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party, has said he will seek stronger ties with Beijing, which have long been strained by distrust over history, sea boundary disputes and worries over China's growing military and political clout. Tokyo's relations with Beijing and Seoul chilled during then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 tenure when his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine for war dead outraged Japan's neighbours, who see the Shinto site as an unrepentant symbol of Japan's past militarism. All three of Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party successors refrained from paying respects at the shrine, driven at least in part by a desire for steadier political and economic cooperation with fast-growing China. Wen, Lee and Hatoyama also sought to highlight hopes for deeper economic cooperation and integration. "In the spirit of facing history squarely and advancing towards the future, the three countries will explore the potential and expand the area of cooperation," the leaders said. They will step up efforts to improve the quality of economic development, oppose trade protectionism, and seek progress in the Doha round of trade liberalisation talks, the leaders said. China is now Japan's biggest trading partner, and the second largest export destination after the United States. South Korea, meanwhile, was Japan's third-biggest export market in 2008. Hatoyama has been seeking deeper ties with Asian partners and has promoted the idea of a regional grouping inspired by the example of the European Union. The joint statement stressed that an "East Asia community" was a "long-term goal". "China-Japan-ROK cooperation will have many opportunities for development in the coming decade," said the statement. The ROK is the Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea. (Additional reporting by Chris Buckley and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jerry Norton)
A monk takes part in a peaceful protest against China at Baudha in Kathmandu October 7, 2009. The protesters said they were rallying against the celebration of China's 60th year of ...
