![From left, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Japan’s then-foreign minister, Taro Kono, at a press conference in Beijing, Aug. 21, 2019 (pool photo by Wu Hong of European Pressphoto Agency via AP Images).](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/l__apan-_hina-_outh-_orea-trilateral-cooperation-09242019-1.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
The foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea met in Beijing last month, where they agreed to seek closer economic ties and push for “free and fair trade” amid a climate of rising protectionism. A leader’s summit in China could follow later this year— an opportunity, perhaps, to resolve some festering troubles in a region mired in mistrust. This diplomatic progress in collective ties comes at an inauspicious time. Attempts by Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul to work together have been undermined constantly over the past decade due to various rivalries in Northeast Asia. An inaugural trilateral leaders’ summit was […]