The President visits Beijing this weekend for the annual tripartite summit talks with his Chinese and Japanese counterparts. The three will exchange views on a variety of topics of mutual interest and consolidate partnership. The Korean president will also hold one-on-one talks with the two leaders during his visit to China.

The fifth three-way summit, slated for May 13 and 14 between The President, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, will seek ways to expand the scope of cooperation in the realms of finance and agriculture. Other topics on the highest-level agenda will include disaster control and meteorological information management alongside youth and education.

The three sides will assess achievements in trilateral cooperation and evaluate the substantive progress that has been made since the establishment of the Korea-Japan-China Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat in September last year. The three parties are also set to hold in-depth talks about the state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula along with issues of regional and global cooperation, stability, and co-prosperity in East Asia.

The joint statement on the tripartite partnership is expected to outline an annex to an agreement for advancing cooperation in agriculture and forestry management. Korea, China, and Japan will also sign an investment guarantee treaty on the occasion of the annual dialogue.

The trilateral summit took place in Fukuoka in December 2008 on the sidelines of the ASEAN+3 meeting, where the three leaders decided to hold the annual summit on a regular basis. The fifth session was brought back to the capital of China following the October 2009 Beijing Summit, Jeju Summit in May 2010, and Tokyo meeting in May 2011.

The three heads of state are set to attend a business summit and encourage partnership among the business leaders of the three nations.

By Hwang Dana
Korea.net Staff Writer