Meeting of Foreign Ministers from America, Japan and South Korea: A Diplomatic Show in a True Sense

After the foreign ministers of America, Japan and South Korea met in Washington a few days ago, American media started to say that an anti-China coalition among those three countries has been formed. The public opinions in those three countries also agree unanimously that this meeting is a diplomatic victory, and that China has been estranged in Northeast Asia. I can only say that this kind of opinion on the entirety of Asia-Pacific diplomatic relations is narrow-minded.

Northeast Asia is not a place where the whole situation could be affected only by who has the closest relations with whom, nor is it a place where security could be assured merely by the number of warships. North Korea doesn’t seek allies with any country, whereas South Korea has America and Japan as back-ups, so could we say South Korea will be perfectly safe?

The meeting among the three foreign ministers can’t change the fact that China is the largest trade partner with South Korea and Japan, nor will it make the tension on the Korean peninsula any better, nor will it solve the dispute over the Diaoyu Islands between China and Japan. All in all, the meeting only showed the insecurity of the three countries. America feels insecure about its leading role in Sino-U.S. relations; Japan is insecure about maintaining its standing in Asia; and South Korea has never felt secure at all.

It would be impossible for an anti-China coalition to take shape in Northeast Asia. The reason is quite simple. How could they achieve that? By cutting off trade with China? That would only hurt the economies of Japan and South Korea. By halting the dialogues with China? It won’t take long for the three countries to resume talks. By condemning China’s human rights? They’ve been doing so all along and China couldn’t care less. By confronting China with military force? Well, they could do that if they want to ruin their trade relations with China and economic opportunities.

An anti-China coalition is merely a result of hysteria of the people who hold resentment against China. The best they could do would probably be making a fuss on some tabloid, which hardly resembles any future course of the Asia-Pacific region.

The political elections have inevitably pushed the diplomatic works of the three countries onto a shiny T-stage, on which all the moves and tricks have to serve for the show. Nothing has been done by any of those three countries to make the tension on the Korean peninsula any better. They are not working in a direction to solve any problems anyway. What they do is merely out of the concern for the public opinion.

Now America, Japan and South Korea are putting up a show of pushing North Korea back into a state where the peninsula, with only hostility left, is totally divided between the north and the south, and no dialogues are possible with the big powers in its neighborhood. That period of history cannot be repeated. It’s merely a whimsical dream borne out of despair.

One couldn’t solve the problems on the Korean peninsula without China, which is pretty evident by now. Another common-sense idea is that since the problem they want to solve is on the Korean peninsula, of course they need North Korea’s participation. Although the six-party talks haven’t achieved the intended effect, at least they are better than the “three-party talks” in terms of solving practical problems. Some American media call the six-party talks merely diplomatic shows. If this is the case, then the meeting between America, Japan and South Korea is undoubtedly a diplomatic show in a true sense that serves no purpose whatsoever.