03/11/2015 Japan, China and South Korea have held a meeting of high symbolic value in the three Northeast Asian nations have "fully restored" economic ties, diplomatic and security and are committed to maintaining a closer cooperation in the future.
More than three years have been necessary for the leaders of these countries, which together account for 20% of the world economy, have left parked their differences and have come together again in a three-way summit, a real attempt to relax stresses that territorial disputes and historical disagreements have created between them.
In Seoul, the host president, Park Geun-hye, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang agreed to join efforts to achieve the signing of a free trade agreement between them, something that would be a boost to a region that is experiencing a time of slowing growth.
Another point of the meeting was the commitment to work towards the "early resumption" of the six-party nuclear talks on North Korea, which also includes Russia and the United States. Recently, Pyongyang declared that it had restored its nuclear reactors yamenazó with their American enemy attack with nuclear missiles.
But above all this, the greatest achievement this afternoon was the holding of the meeting itself.
The three nations began to hold an annual meeting of this kind in early 2008, but it was with the arrival of 'hawk' Shinzo Abe to power in 2012 when they were discontinued. Tensions between Japan and the other two countries, which were already at a low ebb because of his outstanding World War II and certain territorial disputes accounts, took a sharp turn for the worse in 2013 when Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, place where the memory of 2.5 million deaths in the conflict, including executed war criminals are honored.
Abe's insistence on paying homage to the fallen angered China and South Korea, some positions by the Japanese bitter denial that there is evidence showing that the Japanese army forced systematically to Korean and other Asian women to serve as prostitutes his soldiers in brothels who settled in the occupied territories.
While Abe has not given in these areas, experts agree that the three countries share the view that it was time to meet again and to reach some compromise, even considering that their economies are increasingly interconnected and They will need each other to improve their situation in the future.
"We have agreed that we will continue trying to bring peace and stability to the region based on the spirit that we face history with honesty and look to the future," Park said at a press conference accompanied by Abe and Li. "We have increased practical cooperation in a number of areas between the three countries despite the circumstances within and outside the region," he added.
The meeting has been observed with special attention from the United States. Washington wants Japan and South Korea, leading its allies in the region, improve relations as we face the growing geopolitical and economic influence of China. However, both countries should mantenerun difficult balance between their loyalty to the United States and its interest and need to maintain good relations with China, a key country that has become the biggest trading partner and is central to both economies.
