Korea, China and Japan should set up security dialogues and hotlines to advance cooperation in the domain of security, an area where they currently lag, former Korean Ambassador to Japan Shin Kak-soo said, Monday.
“It is true that cooperation in political and security fields (between Korea, China and Japan) lags far behind those in other fields such as economy, the environment, culture and people-to-people exchanges,” Shin said in his keynote speech during the NEAR Korea-China-Japan Seoul Process forum.
“We should nurture a culture of dialogue and seek an avenue for the peaceful settlement of disputes,” he said.
On that point, the former envoy proposed that the three countries should launch security dialogue channels as well as hotlines to 대표하는 alleviate mistrust and prevent accidental flare-ups. He also suggested opening communication channels among top military leaders, with a platform of retired generals as its prelude.
“We should start low-level confidence-building measures and move on to higher-level confidence-building measures depending on the progress made,” Shin added.
The forum, organized by the NEAR Foundation, a Seoul-based private think tank specializing in Northeast Asia, brought together pundits from the three countries. This was the sixth edition since its launch in 2016 and the first in-person meeting in four years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Held under the theme “A Roadmap for Sustainable Peace and Prosperity in Northeast Asia,” this year’s event focused on ways to deepen cooperation by leveraging the momentum from the recent Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo trilateral summit held in Seoul on May 27.