1. The Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA), together with the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) and the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), will hold the eighth Trilateral Cooperation Forum among the Republic of Korea, China and Japan at the CIIS in Beijing on October 15.

2. The forum’s participants will include President Shin Bong-kil and professors Bae Geung-chan, Choe Won-gi, Jo Yang-hyeon and Kim Han-kwon of IFANS; Vice President Guo Xiangang as well as Director Yu Shaohua and Deputy Director Liu Junbo of the Department for Asia-Pacific Security and Cooperation Studies of the CIIS; and Deputy Director-General Toshiro Iijima and Senior Adjunct Fellow Seichiro Takagi of the JIIA as well as professor Shujiro Urata of Japan’s Waseda University.

3. The eighth meeting will focus on geopolitical factors and the reginonal security situation; the new trends in economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and their impact; and the stumbling blocks to the ROK-China-Japan trilateral cooperation and their potential reasons.

4. The ROK-China-Japan Trilateral Cooperation Forum, a cooperation project agreed upon among the leaders of the three countries at their summit talks in 2007, has been held on an annual basis, even at diplomatically difficult times among the governments of the three countries.

Amid preparations being made for the first ROK-China-Japan summit meeting in three years, the forum is expected to help lay an academic basis for continued trilateral summit talks and solid groundwork for building a cooperative and peaceful Northeast Asia.


* unofficial translation