Posted on 04/03/2025 1:01:29 PM PDT by Cronos
The three nations announced on Sunday that they have agreed to accelerate negotiations on their trilateral free trade agreement and enhance cooperation in supply chain management and export controls, according to China's Ministry of Commerce.
Amid tariff increases by the United States and growing economic fragmentation worldwide, China, Japan and South Korea — three manufacturing powerhouses that depend heavily on foreign trade — are likely to form closer ties to preserve Asia’s economic stability and create a buffer against unilateralism, said trade experts and business leaders on Monday.
The three nations announced on Sunday that they have agreed to accelerate negotiations on their trilateral free trade agreement and enhance cooperation in supply chain management and export controls, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.
During the 13th meeting of economic and trade ministers from the three countries, which took place in Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday, top trade officials reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening collaboration within regional and multilateral frameworks.
Faced with mounting pressure on the global economy, they convened for their first talks in five years, as tensions rise over impending tariff threats from the United States.
After announcing 25 percent tariffs on car and light truck imports from all countries in late March, a decision that will significantly affect Japanese and South Korean automakers, Washington plans to start collecting these tariffs from Thursday.
Lu Hao, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Japanese Studies, said the close geopolitical and economic ties among China, Japan and South Korea are an objective reality. Efforts by the US to push Japan and South Korea to “de-risk” or decouple from China are unlikely to succeed, given the Northeast Asian economies’ deeply intertwined economic ties.
“Recent White House policies have heightened concerns among Washington’s Asian allies, particularly Japan and South Korea,” said Lu, adding that these two countries should return to a path of strengthening regional cooperation and improving engagement with China in order to cope with US pressure.
The revival of trilateral cooperation, particularly in economic and trade affairs, is a prevailing trend, he added.
Echoing similar views, Zhang Yuyan, a member of Academic Divisions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that in the wake of US tariff hikes, many countries, especially Japan and South Korea, have increasingly come to appreciate the importance of intra-Asian cooperation.
At the meeting in Seoul, the three countries also agreed to deepen collaboration in digital and green economies, enhance local cooperation, and foster a more favorable environment for cross-border business.
Reflecting the growing business confidence in regional cooperation, Tetsuro Homma, executive vice-president of Panasonic Holdings Corp, said the Japanese company will expand production capacity at its electronic materials plant in Shanghai this year, with operations expected to begin in 2027. This follows the company’s launch of a semiconductor factory project in Suzhou, Jiangsu province last year.
He said China’s leadership in technologies such as artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, solar cells, and other sustainable energy innovations will serve as key drivers of future economic growth.
China and Japan saw their bilateral trade value decline 0.6 percent year-on-year to 324.07 billion yuan ($44.72 billion) in the first two months of 2025, while export and import value between China and South Korea dropped 0.1 percent on a yearly basis to 335.51 trillion yuan, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.
Within the framework of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, China, Japan and South Korea have already established a set of reciprocal terms and market access commitments, said Yuan Bo, a researcher specializing in foreign trade at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing.
If the three countries build on this foundation to broaden trilateral free trade cooperation, including in goods and services trade, as well as further market liberalization and reciprocal policy alignment, it will anchor them more firmly in a shared vision of achieving mutual benefit through better regional development, said Yuan.
Good luck with that Japan and South Korea.
They think they’ll get access to China’s markets and their non existent consumer class.
The false lure of the billion-plus person Chinese consumer market lured in countless western companies, only to have their intellectual property stolen and their actual ability to sell to the Chinese market severely restricted. Of course, the billion person market never really existed, and China was just using fantasies of it to steal everything they could from these companies so that the CCP could eventually create its own copies of them, or acquire many of those very companies. Then they turned around and used that newly-created economic clout to make the west, especially the U.S. dependent upon them.
The billion person Chinese consumer market was a mirage, and it hypnotized the greedy western corporate class.
Probably only a 100 million consumer market ( approved CCP members) while the rest are slaves.
Nailed it.
Obviously.
They’re sure going to need it.
Pushing Japan and South Korea closer to China is not in U.S. interests.
This is Chinese Pravda. Officials in Japan and Korea clarified that no substantive progress had occurred despite Chinese news sources crowing over a joint approach to US tariffs. The problem remains that China keeps its market closed to imports through tariffs and non-tariff barriers, demands 50% Chinese ownership and tech transfer to the local partner for companies that open factories in China to evade Chinese trade barriers.
Russia has maybe 5% of US demand (i.e. both wish and buying power to purchase a given product), but Europe has been unable to find new customers, so sells to Russia through Central Asia to avoid sanctions. The problem for Japan and Korea is that the US is an irreplaceable customer. For instance, Kubota gets 36% of its sales from the US, 21% from China and Europe combined.
I’ve told Pol-Sci students their dissertations should be on one of two subjects.
How the 17th Amendment has created the US Senate into an “Elite Ruling Class”
Why moronic MBA CEOs chase sales in the Chinese non-existent consumer market
I worked at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. during the 1980s. Our corporate cousin - R.J. Reynolds Tobacco International, started laying plans to build a cigarette factory in China to produce RJR brands for the Chinese domestic market in 1983. R.J. Reynolds and 2 Chinese partners began operations at China's first joint-venture cigarette factory, in the southern city of Xiamen in 1988. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco International said the $21 million factory would employ 350 people and produce 2.5 billion cigarettes annually when fully operational. The China-American Cigarette Co. will produce the best-selling brands Camel and Winston and 2 new jointly owned brands, Golden Bridge and Sprint. The Winston brand was sold by R.J. Reynolds in 2014 to Imperial Tobacco Co.
I heard from colleagues that the ChiComs restricted the factory to producing the American brands during the day shift. The evening shifts were configured to produce local Chinese brands. I can only guess where that venture stands today.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.