A Trilateral in Name Only

Posted: October 29th, 2015

By Michael Auslin

Michael Auslin is a resident scholar and the director of Japan Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he specializes in Asian regional security and political issues. Before joining AEI, Auslin was an associate professor of history at Yale University. He is a biweekly columnist on Asia for The Wall Street Journal, and his books include the forthcoming The Asia Bubble (Yale University Press), and Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of U.S.-Japan Relations (Harvard University Press, 2011). Auslin has advised both the US Government and private business on Asian and global security issues.

When leaders of Japan, South Korea, and China gather in Seoul this weekend, it may be best to paraphrase Sigmund Freud: Sometimes, a meeting is just a meeting.

The Seoul confab will be the first trilateral meeting of Northeast Asia’s main powers since May 2012. This time, however, a new face will represent China, current premier Li Keqiang, who will be making his first visit to South Korea. That is leading some observers to predict that the agenda will be focused more on economic issues than political and security ones. Such an approach would probably suit Japan’s leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, just fine. After all, avoiding the bitterly controversial issues that dog Japan’s relations with South Korea and China – including wartime sexual slavery and comments questioning Japans’ overall war guilt – is possibly the best way to try and restart relations with both Beijing and South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Indeed, Ms. Park and Mr. Abe have not yet had a formal bilateral meeting together since she came to power two years ago.

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