Opinion | Trilateral summit of South Korea, Japan and China is a pantomime show directed by U.S.
By Augustus K. Yeung
There is no metaphor more suitable and appropriate than Shakespeare's quotation, "The world's a stage and we [the Koreans, Japanese, and even the Chinese] are merely players." The difference is the degree of strategic autonomy that Korea, Japan and China are enjoying or permitted to have.
Japan being the U.S. enemy in World War Two, and the only country that was hit twice by America's atomic bombs, is condemned – to play a subservient role, possibly with no chance of exercising strategic autonomy – for fear that the Japanese will harbor grudges against the U.S. for its annihilation.
The ruthless way in which the thriving Japanese auto industry was eased out of the North American market is a stark reminder to the Japanese that the United States has been and will always be watching them from above and below, possibly for fear of retaliation for the relentless U.S. bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Japanese cities that got hit.
South Korea, which has fought a war with North Korea with the U.S. army side by side in the Korean War, is able to enjoy economic freedom so much so that it has thrived in the electronics and automobile industry. But it is put in a dependency trap – forever relying on the mighty U.S. military for national defense.
China, which as been dubbed an ideological adversary of the United States, is the exceptional case in which it was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO), politically encouraged by the U.S. as its groomed ally in America's fight against the Soviet Union in the last Cold War, and economically nurtured as America's manufacturing factory, serving the mass by providing it with cheap American household goods.
The intent of the script that America is an economically egoistic country that puts its own national interests above all other nations could not be clearer.
This abridged article serves the purpose, showing and telling the world that as a hegemony, the U.S. is directing nation-actors according to the grand script prepared by the White House and the dark Pentagon, and that whatever degree of freedom that its two U.S. Asian allies enjoy are but the meager allowance that Washington has to offer or permit.
The top diplomats from South Korea, Japan and China met yesterday to discuss when to resume their leaders' trilateral summit after a four-year hiatus and how to strengthen cooperation among the three Northeast Asian neighbors.
Closely linked economically and culturally with one another, the three economically strong Asian countries together account for about 25% of the global GDP. But efforts to boost trilateral cooperation have often hit a snag – because of a mix of issues including historical disputes stemming from Japan's wartime aggression and the strategic competition between China and the U.S.
"Korea, Japan and China have the potential for massive cooperation. Our three countries are neighbors that can't be separated from one another," South Korean FM Park Jin said at the start of the meeting in Busan, South Korea. "I hope we can strive together to hold the South Korean-Japan-China summit, which is at the apex of three-way cooperation, at any early date."
Japanese FM Yoko Kamikawa and Chinese FM Wang Yi said they would also push to revive three-way cooperation. Park said he hoped Sunday's meeting would also discuss ways of collaboration in the face of North Korea's evolving threats, as well as trade, climate change and personnel exchange among the three countries.
South Korea and Japan are key U.S. allies, hosting a total of 80,000 American troops on their territories. Their recent push to beef up a trilateral security cooperation with the U.S. has angered China, which is sensitive to any moves it perceives as seeking to contain its rise to dominance in Asia.
But some observers say that the fact that President Xi Jinping and Joe Bien struck a conciliatory tone in their APEC summit in San Francisco would provide Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing with diplomatic rooms to maneuver to find ways to revive three-way cooperation.
The three ministers held bilateral talks on the sidelines.
After her meeting with Wang Yi on Saturday, Kamikawa said she renewed Japan's demand that China remove its ban on seafood imports from Japan in response to Tokyo's discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from its tsunami-hit nuclear power plant.
Ties between China and Japan have deteriorated severely in years…
Meeting Wang bilaterally, Park asked for China to play a constructive role in persuading enemy North Korea to halt its provocations and take steps toward denuclearization. (Source: MDT/AP)
Conclusively, Wang described China as "a stabilizing force" in the region that has "always played and will continue to play a constructive role in easing the situation on the peninsula" according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
It said Wang called for stronger trade and economic ties between the two countries and criticized the "tendency to politicize economic issues."
North Korea's growing arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles poses a major security threat to South Korea and Japan is a perception, but the situation is forged by a U.S.-led policy of isolation and sanctions against an enemy in the Korean War that happened more than half a century ago.
Given its dire situation, what should North Korea do to keep its people from starving?
As a war-time ally – and on humanitarian grounds – China is seen as North Korea's major ally and biggest source of aid. It is suspected of avoiding fully enforcing the so-called UN sanctions on North Korea – and shipping covert assistance to the North to help its impoverished neighbor stay afloat and continue to serve as a bulwark against ill-intentioned U.S. influence on the Korean Peninsula.
In this trilateral summit, all three sides have some self-serving interests of their own in mind, but without the "blessings" of Biden, the ultimate "boss", this diplomatic exchange of opinion would be impossible.
Isn't this an illustration of U.S. hegemony at work?!
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
To contact the writer, please direct email: AugustusKYeung@ymail.com
Read more articles by Augustus K. Yeung:
Opinion | After APEC, China and America are working together to contain the Israel-Hamas conflict
Comment