A milestone & new starting point for China, Japan, ROK

BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Republic of Korea's President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama erected not only a milestone but a new starting point for the tripartite cooperation as the second trilateral summit meeting was held here Saturday.

REMARKABLE PROGRESS

In November, 1999, the first China-ROK-Japan tripartite summit was held in the form of an "informal breakfast" on the sideline ofa meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus the three states (10+3).

"The leaders of the three neighboring states, for the very first time in the last millennia, sit down around one table," said Jin Xide, a researcher with China's top think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Till 2009, there have been several annual trilateral summit meetings within the 10+3 framework and the first China-ROK-Japan summit out of the regime was held last December in Japan.

In the last one decade, the three states have focused on 11 major cooperation fields such as economy and trade, information technology and environmental protection, and established 15 dialogue mechanism at ministerial level.

Last year, trade among the three leading Asian economies, which now accounts for 17 percent of the world economy and 90 percent in East Asia, has surged to 500 billion U.S. dollars, mostly thanks to China's soaring economy and growing imports from ROK and Japan.

In political aspect, the three states maintained frequent high-level contact and enhanced mutual trust; in economic aspect, they have grown into each other's major trade partners; in social and cultural aspects, the people-to-people exchange were colorful and fruitful, Wen told his colleagues during the two-hour summit.

"We are close neighbors and major states in Asia and to boost cooperation among us is not only conform with our respective interests, but will also be conducive for Asia and the world at large," Wen said.