By Xu Aiying

The leaders of Korea, Japan and China have agreed to resume regular trilateral summits and restore and normalize their three-way cooperative system.

President Yoon Suk Yeol on May 27 hosted the ninth trilateral summit of the three East Asian powers with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the state guesthouse Yeongbingwan within the former presidential compound of Cheong Wa Dae.

They also adopted a joint statement after their talks.

The declaration said the three sides decided to "strive to institutionalize the trilateral cooperation by holding the Trilateral Summit and Ministerial meetings on a regular basis, and continue to promote the capacity-building of the TCS (Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat)."

"To this end, we will also identify and implement mutually-beneficial cooperation projects centered on six key areas closely related to the everyday lives of the peoples: people-to-people exchanges; sustainable development including through climate change response; economic cooperation and trade; public health and ageing society; science and technology cooperation, digital transformation; and disaster relief and safety," it added.

"Also, we strive to increase the number of people-to-people exchanges among the three countries to 40 million by 2030 through promoting exchange including culture, tourism and education," it said. "We will also designate 2025-2026 as the Year of Cultural Exchange among the three countries."

On climate change, the three leaders agreed to "collaborate with Mongolia on reducing dust and sandstorms in East Asia" and "develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution at its fifth session (INC-5)" slated for November in Busan.

They will "keep discussions for speeding up negotiations for a Trilateral FTA (Free Trade Agreement), aiming at realizing a free, fair, comprehensive, high-quality, and mutually beneficial FTA with its own value."

Turning to public health and the ageing society, the three leaders adopted on the occasion of the summit the Joint Statement on Future Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response and pledged trilateral cooperation in responding to infectious diseases.

In science and technology, they recognized the importance of trilateral academic exchange by researchers of each country and joint research and development in areas such as green and low-carbon society. In disaster relief and safety, they decided to boost cooperation through the Trilateral Meeting on Police Cooperation to prevent and crack down on "transboundary crimes, including fraud and drug-related crimes."

Turning to regional issues, the statement said, "We reaffirmed that maintaining peace, stability and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia serves our common interest and is our common responsibility."

It added, "We reiterated positions on regional peace and stability, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the abductions issue, respectively. We agree to continue to make positive efforts for the political settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue."

President Yoon told a joint news conference after the summit, "From today, we have normalized the trilateral summit and laid the basis for the growth of the three-way cooperative system, which marks its 25th anniversary this year," adding, "We agreed that the driver of our trilateral cooperation lies in the public's support and decided to expand practical collaboration felt by the people of the three countries."

"Mutual understanding and trust among the people of the three countries form the foundation for trilateral cooperation," he added. "The joint statement adopted at this summit contains the intent of the three countries to closely cooperate to enhance the public livelihood of each nation and achieve peace and prosperity in the region."

xuaiy@korea.kr