SOUTH KOREA/ JAPAN: South Korea and Japan held their first bilateral finance leaders’ meeting in seven years on Tuesday, indicating that the two countries’ icy relations are warming up in the face of common problems caused by geopolitical unrest and sluggish economic growth.
The two countries’ bilateral financial talks have resumed ahead of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s scheduled trip to South Korea next week for meetings with President Yoon Suk Yeol.
“Japan and South Korea are important neighbours that must cooperate to address various challenges surrounding the global economy as well as the regional and international community,” said Shunichi Suzuki, Japan’s finance minister, during a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Choo Kyung-ho.
“As for geopolitical challenges, we are experiencing incidents like North Korea’s nuclear missile development and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Japan sees these as unacceptable and something the two countries must address together,” he added.
Choo stated that the two nations could bolster private and government cooperation in high-tech industries like batteries and semiconductors.
In opening remarks, Choo told Suzuki, “we need to strengthen cooperation between financial authorities on the recent emergence of geopolitical risks and supply chain instability.”
Choo also exhorted Japan to quickly add South Korea back to the “white list” of nations with fast-track trade status at the meeting conducted this week on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) conference.
Since 2016, the yearly dialogue between the finance ministers of the two nations has been put on hold due to disagreements regarding the history of the war.
However, relations between U.S. allies have strengthened recently in response to North Korea’s frequent missile launches and China’s more assertive role in world affairs.
At a historic summit in Tokyo last month, Kishida and Yoon vowed to put aside their tumultuous shared past and cooperate to address regional security issues.
Suzuki expressed the hope that the bilateral financial discussion between Japan and South Korea could continue and that doing so would strengthen ties between the two nations.
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