Ongoing talks bring a fresh start to three-way cooperation

Discussions on a China-Japan-ROK cooperation mechanism started 20 years ago. But the fact that Japan and the ROK have a security alliance with the US and share the US' wariness over a rising China, as well as the recent Tokyo-Seoul disputes have affected the smooth flow of tripartite talks.

Although it is impossible for any meeting to achieve a breakthrough overnight, the fact that the three sides have been exploring ways to establish a trilateral cooperation mechanism and promote multilateralism is in itself a precious outcome.

The US' unilateral and protectionist measures are threatening to distort the global industrial and value chains, and therefore have prompted China, Japan and the ROK to establish a tripartite cooperation mechanism in order to safeguard multilateralism and promote free trade, and build a fair global governance mechanism.

Seoul seems especially eager to promote the trilateral talks so it can tide over the effects of a sluggish domestic economy, its trade frictions with Japan, and the huge cost of stationing US troops on ROK soil.

Economic cooperation, political trust and security cooperation are important factors for maintaining stable relations among China, Japan and the ROK, with economic cooperation being the key, because it can help promote mutual political trust and security cooperation.

Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul have to strengthen cooperation also to cope with security risks on the Korean Peninsula. Japan and the ROK may not necessarily support the joint proposal of China and Russia that the UN Security Council partly lift the sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to break the deadlock in the US-DPRK talks. But they most probably will mediate between Washington and Pyongyang once tensions on the peninsula escalate.

And since bilateral talks in the denuclearization issue can hit a roadblock if either party is unhappy, China, Japan and the ROK should make joint efforts to revive the Six-Party Talks and take the peninsula peace process forward and ultimately resolve the peninsula nuclear issue.

The author Ba Dianjun, head of the Institute of International Politics at and deputy director of Northeast Asia Research Center, Jilin University.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.