Japan, China, S. Korea meet briefly

Japan, China, S. Korea meet briefly

George Nishiyama, Reuters/Kuala Lumpur

The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea, caught up in
increasingly bitter exchanges over Tokyo's wartime past, had an
impromptu chat at a Southeast Asian summit on Monday but
officials could not agree how it came about.

A formal meeting of the three leaders held every year on the
occasion of the ASEAN summit was not scheduled this year because
of tensions over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a
Tokyo shrine that honors some convicted war criminals along with
Japan's 2.5 million war dead.

The three sides gave diverging accounts of Monday's meeting,
with South Korean officials saying their president had talked
only to Koizumi, while Chinese officials said both the Chinese
and South Korean leaders spoke to him.

"It was a chance encounter," South Korean presidential
spokeswoman Mira Sun said, adding, "It was not a meeting."

But Japanese officials said the "friendly" chat lasted for
about 10 minutes ahead of a lunch involving members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their dialog
partners Japan, China and South Korea.

Indeed, the three leaders sat together at lunch, with Koizumi
seated between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun.

Koizumi said no touchy political issues were raised during
their chat and the ensuing lunch.

"Premier Wen asked me if I liked Shanghai crab, so I said
yes," Koizumi told reporters. "You don't discuss serious things
over a meal."

The South Korean spokeswoman said Wen had merely listened to
Koizumi and Roh exchange pleasantries about cultural exchanges
among the three countries during a chat in a waiting-room.

"While they were chatting the Chinese prime minister entered
the room, but in the end the chat only took place between the
Japanese and South Korean leaders," the spokeswoman added.

However, speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur, Chinese
foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said: "The two leaders
urged the Japanese leader to take the right approach toward the
issue of history and to create favorable conditions and
atmosphere for the trilateral cooperation".

South Korea and China have demanded Koizumi stop his annual
visits to the Yasukuni shrine. The Japanese leader has refused,
criticizing them for using the issue as a diplomatic card.

Koizumi, who came into power in April 2001, last went to the
shrine in October. He says his visits are to pray for peace and
honor the war dead.

Apart from the trilateral meeting, both Beijing and Seoul have
given him the cold shoulder, saying their leaders would not hold
separate talks with him during the Kuala Lumpur gathering.

Wen told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that China had not wanted
to see the meeting delayed, and blamed Japan.

"The main reason is because Japanese leaders won't own up to
history," he said, repeating oft-made comments.

"The Japanese invasion of China was a very painful disaster...
Despite this China and Japan are neighbors. The long term
development of relations between the two countries is in the
interests of the people of those countries. The main problem is
Japanese leaders are going against the tide of history."

Even though Koizumi's shrine visits have frayed relations with
China and South Korea, it has done him little harm at home and
may even be winning him some points with the Japanese public.

Analysts say his rejection of demands to stop visiting
Yasukuni strikes a chord with the many Japanese who resent
China's economic rise and are suspicious of its military buildup.