UN Chief Praises China-Japan-S. Korea Resumed Trilateral Summit Format

South Korea had been scheduled to take wartime control, known as OPCON, by the end of next year, but now the transfer is based on conditions being met and not a particular timeline.

“The two leaders agreed to speed up consultations to try to resolve the comfort women question as quickly as possible”, the Blue House said in a statement.

Park said in an interview with Japan’s Asahi Shimbun daily last week that resolving the “comfort women” issue was central to better ties with Japan. Japan maintains that all compensation claims were settled by the countries’ 1965 diplomatic treaty, and that the Abe administration stands by a 1993 government apology issued by the then chief cabinet secretary, Yohei Kono. The fact that the two did not hold a joint news conference after the summit indicates the sensitivity of the issue. And neither side publicly expressed willingness to compromise on the issue.

But Hosaka Yuji, a political science professor at Seoul’s Sejong University says the South Korean president won a small but important diplomatic concession from the Japanese leader.

Despite protests from Seoul and Beijing, Abe hasn’t yielded on his nationalism.

The high-level contacts among the three neighboring countries broke down when Shinzo Abe became the prime minister of Japan in 2012.

After a freeze of more than three years, the leaders of South Korea and Japan resumed formal talks focusing on North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear bombs, and a long-running dispute over Japan’s wartime atrocities.

Li said Japan had yet to do all it can to appease the suspicion held by the two countries that suffered under its wartime aggression about Tokyo’s view on promoting genuine regional cooperation.

The China-Japan-South Korea summit had taken place annually from 2008 to 2012 before it bogged down due to Japanese provocations on historical and territorial issues that angered both China and South Korea. They also reaffirmed a resolve to resume stalled worldwide negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Beijing entered into trilateral talks with Seoul and Tokyo on Sunday (November 1), after which the three announced trade and security ties had been “completely restored”. The next such summit is expected to be held next year in Japan.

U.S.-China frictions include the U.S.’s attempt to block another China project, the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, and their recent dispute over China’s activities in the South China Sea.

But as this complicated triangle continues to develop, the South’s Defense Minister Han Min-koo risked siding with the US when he insisted Monday that freedom of navigation and flight should be guaranteed in the South China Sea.

China Daily was even less optimistic, saying that the statement presented “little more than a shared willingness to work together”.

Negotiators for the 16 countries, which also include India and the 10 states of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) met in Busan, South Korea, last month to discuss market opening and tariff reductions on goods and services.