SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) - The new head of the intergovernmental body linking South Korea, China and Japan said Tuesday that cooperation among the three countries had continued without a break for 15 years, even when ties between any two of them turned difficult.
Nishioka Tatsushi, who took office this month as secretary-general of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS), remarked at a meeting with South Korea's Foreign Minister Cho Hyun at the foreign ministry in Seoul. The secretariat marks its 15th anniversary this month. The three countries' leaders have not met for a summit since Seoul hosted the last one in May 2024.
Looking back over that period, Nishioka said trilateral cooperation activities on the ground were "never suspended." He called it a "not well-known fact among the people" and said it should draw more public attention.
He also credited South Korea as more than the host of TCS and a supporter of its work, calling the country "a founding father of the mechanism."
The three governments set up TCS in Seoul in September 2011 under an agreement each signed and ratified. It is an intergovernmental organization that gives administrative and technical support to cooperation among the three countries, from the leaders' summit and ministerial meetings to exchange programs for young people and television producers.
A board of a secretary-general and two deputy secretaries-general, one from each country, runs the secretariat. The top post rotates among South Korea, Japan and China in that order. In March 2025, the three foreign ministers welcomed the signing of a protocol amending the founding agreement to strengthen the secretariat's longer-term work.
Nishioka, a Japanese diplomat who previously held the rank of minister at Japan's embassy in Seoul, leads the eighth board, which he said would serve a three-year term. He succeeded South Korea's Lee Hee-sup, whose board's tenure ended with a farewell reception in Seoul on Aug. 28.
The board's two deputies, South Korea's Kim Han-kyu and China's Li Jing, joined him at the meeting. Li said he and his colleague made promoting trilateral cooperation their priority as they took up their new posts.
Cho thanked Nishioka for his positive assessment of the secretariat's first 15 years. He acknowledged "ups and downs" but said the three countries "have to continuously work together for the promotion of relationships among our three countries."
"This is our destiny," Cho said.
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