Chinese King says "Korea and Japan should not join the encirclement of China"

Wang Yi delivering a greeting at the Korea-China-Japan Cooperation Forum

Wang Yi, the head of Chinese diplomacy and a member of the Communist Party Central Political Bureau (Director of the Party Central Foreign Affairs Office), emphasized that South Korea, China, and Japan should each have a strategic sense of independence. He urged South Korea and Japan not to join the US-led containment of China.

According to Chinese media Pengpai, Wang Yi stated in a speech at the "South Korea-China-Japan Trilateral Cooperation International Forum" held on the 3rd in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China, "We must uphold independence and autonomy and unite to strengthen ourselves," adding, "We respect Japan and South Korea developing relations with countries around the world, but no relationship should be used to suppress or encircle close neighbors."

He continued, "The three countries of China, Japan, and South Korea, along with other Asian countries, should practice open regionalism, promote the inclusive values of Asia, cultivate a strategic sense of autonomy, maintain regional unity and stability, reject the resurgence of Cold War thinking, and firmly hold their own and their region’s destiny in their own hands without being threatened by hegemony or lawlessness."

Wang Yi also introduced that 20 years ago, the three countries of China, Japan, and South Korea made their first joint declaration aiming to strengthen East Asian cooperation and safeguard regional and global peace and prosperity. He emphasized that "this is the original intention and mission of the trilateral cooperation," and stressed the need to "adhere to the original intention and mission" of South Korea-China-Japan trilateral cooperation.

Although Wang Yi did not directly mention the United States, his remarks are interpreted as a call for South Korea and Japan, which are strengthening cooperation with the US amid its increasing efforts to contain China, to adjust their course.

Wang Yi sharply criticized the US by saying, "Individual extra-regional powers deliberately promote ideological differences to pursue geopolitical self-interest, forming various exclusive small groups to foster confrontation instead of cooperation, and division instead of unity."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.