Korean finance minister meets with Fitch delegation

Wang said the ministry is closely following Japan’s negotiations with South Korea and reiterated Taiwan’s four demands to Japan over the “comfort women” issue.

The three countries have quarreled on a number of issues — notably territorial disputes and wartime history — and their foreign ministers’ meetings resumed only last year after a two-year hiatus because of strained Chinese-Japanese relations. This will lead to a positive response from South Korea toward solving the comfort women issue “finally and irreversibly”.

The Korea Times reported that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi once again voiced out his country’s opposition toward the deployment and said that South Korea should cancel the initial plan.

On the morning of the same day that the talks were held, North Korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

“The nuclear threat from the North is more serious than ever”, Yun said.

The exact amount of the money to be granted to each victim or bereaved family could vary depending on individual needs, a ministry official said.

Mr Wang, the first Chinese foreign minister to visit Tokyo since 2012, said it was related to the “fishing season”.

Wang echoed the concern, saying that Beijing objects to the North’s nuclear and missile programs, and also to any words and behaviors that could heighten instability on the Korean Peninsula. The annual event has been hosted by the three countries in rotation since 2008.

Fourthly, the three sides should push forward sustainable development, build the China-Japan-South Korea Circular Economy Demonstration Base and boost cooperation in the fields including environment protection, small and medium-sized enterprises and disaster relief.

Nevertheless, Kishida protested to Wang over China’s escalating maritime activity around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku island, which Beijing also claims, demanding China “fully calm the situation” and avoid tension.

In this connection, it is appropriate that Japan has emphasized its stance of faithfully implementing the Japan-South Korea deal reached late a year ago.

South Korea’s ties with China, its No. 1 trading partner, have frayed over Seoul’s decision to station a THAAD battery on its soil.

Protesters hold portraits of former South Korean sex slaves who were forced to serve Japanese troops in World War II, during a rally against the establishment of the Japanese government-funded Reconciliation and Healing Foundation in Seoul, South Korea, in July 2016.

New Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine said Thursday he strongly believes bilateral relations will improve.