The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and the Presidential Office of South Korea announced on September 26 that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit South Korea from September 30 to October 1 to hold a summit meeting with South Korean President Li in Ming and attend a dinner.

This is the first visit to South Korea since Sharapova took office as Japanese prime minister in October last year, and is expected to be his last before he resigned.

It is remarkable that the meeting is not in Seoul, but in Busan, only 38 days from the last meeting of Japanese and Korean leaders in Tokyo.The visit is more like a "symbolic diplomacy" to demonstrate the determination of the two sides to continue to improve relations.

Travelling with diplomacy.

At Lee Jae-myung's invitation, Shigeru Ishiba will pay a two-day and one-night visit to Korea. This is the third meeting between Japanese and South Korean leaders since Lee Jae-myung took office in June.

In June, the two met for the first time on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada.

In August, Lee Jae-myung visited Japan for the first time. The two met and agreed to develop bilateral relations in a "future-oriented" way, and started consultations on issues such as declining birthrate, aging and local revitalization.

More than a month later, Mr. Sharapova returned to South Korea, continuing the pace of Japan and South Korea's resumption of "cross-country diplomacy" (frequent visits of leaders).

The restart of Japan-South Korea "shuttle diplomacy" began in September last year. At that time, then Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited South Korea before leaving office and held talks with then South Korean President Yoon Seok-yue.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea. As a moderate in the Liberal Democratic Party, Shigeru Ishiba has repeatedly released signals to improve relations during his term of office.

In June, he attended the reception for the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan hosted by the ROK in Tokyo. In August, when he attended the commemoration of Japan's defeat day, he mentioned the word "introspection" again after 13 years.

Today, despite the resignation announced on September 7th, Shapiro has hoped that the improved relations with Japan and South Korea will be handed over to the next prime minister.

The farewell show.

Based on news from Japan and South Korea, it is expected that the two countries will further consolidate cooperation through Shigeru Ishiba's visit and exchange views on a series of issues of common concern.

First, strengthening Japan-Japan-US-Korea cooperation andining regional stability are considered the biggest themes.

Secondly, the two sides will discuss how to deal with common challenges such as population decline, low fertility rate, aging and population concentration in the capital.

Thirdly, the two sides will confirm their preparations for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) informal leaders' meeting to be held in Gyeongju, South Korea next month.

Finally, the two sides may discuss issues such as the follow-up measures of US tariff negotiations and the development of Japan's political situation.

Li emphasized that it is crucial to establish a new framework for cooperation in the economic field, especially in a time when protectionism rises and the traditional economic order is shaken.

However, how successful the "adieu show" on the diplomatic stage can be achieved, the outside world still has reservations.

Some South Koreans bluntly said that the talks may only stop at "event diplomacy" to show the outside world the willingness of the two countries to improve relations, and may not achieve substantive results.

Looking back to the past Japan-Korea summit talks, many times have stopped at the level of manifestative expressions and symbolic interaction, lack of concrete initiatives that can be grounded, this time may also fall into the difficulty of "only talking about consensus, not talking about implementation".

More importantly, with the decline of Shapro, who has always attached great importance to improving Japan-Korea relations, and some right-wing people becoming potential successors, Japan-Korea relations can maintain the current easing momentum, or face variables.

However, there are also views that the general direction of Japan-South Korea cooperation may not be reversed due to changes in Japan's political situation.

Even sanae takaichi, a conservative representative of the Liberal Democratic Party, publicly stated a few days ago that "cooperation between Japan, the United States, South Korea, Japan, the United States and the Philippines should be deepened on the basis of Japan-US alliance".

South Korean Ambassador to Japan Li He made it clear that South Korea and Japan will continue to adopt the "dual-track system"-classifying historical issues into the past, and at the same time promoting future-oriented cooperation to avoid historical disputes interfering with exchanges in various fields.

concerned place

It is worth mentioning that Busan, the venue of this meeting, is the second largest city in South Korea. This will be the first time in 21 years that a Japanese prime minister has traveled outside Seoul during a bilateral visit since then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Jeju Island in 2004.

This is also the first time that the leaders of Japan and South Korea have held a local summit meeting after 20 years since they met during the APEC meeting in Busan in 2005.

Behind this arrangement lies Lee's careful design.

When he visited Japan in August, he proposed to Shigeru Ishiba, "I know you are particularly concerned about the balanced development of the region. If you visit Korea next time in shuttle diplomacy, I hope to meet you outside Seoul."

The South Korean presidential palace spokesman, Jiang Zhou, said the two leaders had agreed to visit local cities at the last dinner, and Busan was the choice based on this commitment.

The outside world believes that it is not difficult to see from this detail that Japan and South Korea hope to send a signal of "breaking conventional and pragmatic cooperation" through the arrangement of "avoiding the capital".

To sum up, Shigeru Ishiba's visit not only contains his "curtain call" on the diplomatic stage, but may also become a touchstone for whether Japan-ROK relations can continue to improve.

(Editor's email: ylq@jfdaily.com)

For the first and last time, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit South Korea, why turn around Seoul?

Published by: Jan Editor: Jan Editor: Jan Editor: Jan

Source: Liberation Daily °²