President Lee Myung-bak, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao are attending the Third Korea-Japan-China Summit today and tomorrow on Jeju Island. At the first session today, the three leaders gave a high evaluation to progress in trilateral cooperation and discussed the direction for future developments.

 
Among other things, the three leaders said they highly valued the fact that collaboration among the three nations since the ASEAN+3 meeting in 1999 has been rapidly expanded and deepened in a wide array of fields, including politics, the economy, society, culture and people-to-people exchanges. They adopted a document entitled, “Trilateral Cooperation Vision 2020” outlining the vision for relations among the three countries over the next 10 years.
 

On the occasion of the second trilateral summit held in Beijing last year, the three leaders saw eye to eye on the necessity of establishing a Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat. Accordingly, they agreed to set up the Secretariat in South Korea in 2011 in a bid to further strengthen and facilitate the institutionalization of three-way collaboration in the years to come.
 

In the meanwhile, with a view to working together for the promotion of viable new growth engines, the three leaders adopted a Joint Statement on Standardization Cooperation as well as a Joint Statement on Strengthening Cooperation for Science Innovation. Furthermore, as a means of solidifying future-oriented trilateral cooperation, they agreed to carry out various new cooperative projects. These include the establishment of an employment and labor council, a law and order council, a CAMPUS Asia pilot program and a government employee exchange program as well as green economy seminars, a high-level forum for the establishment of circular economy model sites, and a short-term program for training diplomats from third countries.
 

In the second session scheduled for tomorrow morning, the three leaders are to delve into matters concerning the Northeast Asian situation, the forthcoming G-20 Summit and nuclear security as well as other regional and international issues.