Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo agreed on Tuesday to hold a summit of the three leaders “as soon as possible” to ease Chinese concerns about deepening security ties between Japan, South Korea and the United States, France 24 reported, citing Rador. Radio Romania.

China said on Tuesday (Sept 26) after a rare tripartite diplomatic meeting in Seoul that it had agreed with South Korea and Japan to hold a summit of the three leaders “as soon as possible”.

The talks in the South Korean capital, attended by deputy ministers and assistant ministers, were seen as a way to assuage Beijing’s concerns about deepening security ties between Tokyo, Seoul and Washington.

China welcomed “in-depth discussions to promote the stable resumption of trilateral cooperation.”

“It was agreed that cooperation between China, Japan and South Korea is in the common interests of the three parties,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The three countries agreed to hold a meeting of their foreign ministers “in the coming months” and “encourage a meeting of leaders as soon as possible,” he emphasized.

The last such summit was held in 2019 in Chengdu in western China. Since then, the summit has not been held due to diplomatic and historical differences between Seoul and Tokyo, partly related to the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

“20% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s GDP”

For his part, South Korea’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that diplomats from the three countries “agreed to hold a tripartite summit as soon as possible and hold a preparatory tripartite meeting at the ministerial level.”

Cooperation between South Korea, China and Japan “plays an important role not only in Northeast Asia, but also for world peace, stability and prosperity,” South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

He also emphasized that these three countries alone represent “20% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s GDP.”

Unlike North Korea, South Korea, led by President Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative who is staunchly opposed to Pyongyang, has stepped up military cooperation with Washington. At the same time, he moved closer to Japan, another close ally of the United States.

In August, at the summit in Camp David near Washington, which brought together the leaders of Japan and South Korea together with the American president

Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol assessed that the meeting opens a “new chapter” in the relations between the three countries.

Beijing criticized a statement made during the meeting in which the three allies criticized China’s “aggressive behavior” in the South China Sea. Seoul’s number one trading partner, Beijing is also North Korea’s main diplomatic supporter.

Tokyo, Seoul and Washington regularly hold joint military exercises, which has angered Pyongyang. China, for its part, sent high-ranking political officials to participate in a military parade in the capital of North Korea in early September.