Japan, China Talks May Be Gaining Impetus Toward Summit

By Isabel Reynolds and Takashi Hirokawa  

Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

Shinzo Abe, Japan's Prime Minister.

Talks between China and Japan on holding the first summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Xi Jinping may be gaining momentum.
Abe called today for meetings with Chinese and South Korean leaders without preconditions after a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His reiteration of a proposal for a summit with Xi in November came as the nations’ foreign ministers met at the gathering, Kyodo News said, and days after the two nations held high-level talks on maritime issues.
“China and South Korea are important neighboring countries for Japan,” Abe told reporters. “Various problems arise because we are
neighbors, but precisely because there are problems, we should hold talks without preconditions.”
While Abe has visited 49 countries since taking office in December 2012, he has failed to bring about meetings with Xi or South Korean President Park Geun Hye amid territorial and historical disputes with both countries. Abe’s call for a summit with China during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing in November may hinge on him making concrete steps toward rapprochement.
“Despite Abe’s diplomatic overtures, it is unclear whether he is willing to make any concrete offers to Park and Xi ahead of the APEC summit,” analysts including Andy Liu and Tobias Harris at Teneo Intelligence wrote in a report before Abe’s remarks. “With Xi’s growing assertiveness, China will likely demand more specific commitments from Abe on the territorial dispute and history issues before a summit between the two leaders will be possible.”

Five Days

Abe departs New York today after a five-day visit, during which he talked to investors and Columbia University students, held a dialog with Hillary Clinton on equality for women and spoken on Japan’s climate policy. He is set to address a summit on strengthening international peace operations before leaving for Tokyo.
Abe has sought to toughen Japan’s security stance in the face of China’s growing military prowess, with ships and planes from the two countries tailing one another around disputed islands in the East China Sea. He said today that Japan retained its pacifist ethos.
“Japan has never for a moment forgotten the horrors of war,” he said in his United Nations speech. “Our pledge never to wage war is something that will be handed down and fostered by the Japanese people for generation upon generation to come.”

Korean Ties

Abe expressed a wish to meet South Korean President Park at an international meeting later this year in a letter delivered to the South Korean prime minister by former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Sept. 19.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung Se told Kishida yesterday in New York that Japan should make “heartfelt” efforts to heal wounds from their bilateral history, according to a statement on the South Korean ministry’s website. This includes the issue of Korean women used as sex slaves by Japanese troops before and during World War II, it said.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters today in Tokyo his country would not take new steps on the so-called comfort women issue.