the wants behind the southern warming of ties between south korea, japan, i'm china, 3 countries, long list of mutual suspicions as the jungle have those stories on the mall and news in just a moment. i'm get hot out for us. we'll have more. well, news of the talk with you have a good the we are all set and we're watching closely. we all seem to bring you the story behind the news. we rolled about unbiased information all 3 months. done. the discovery. change your mind. just

a click away. find out best document trees on you to see the world, the subscribe. now to dw talking entry, you're watching dw news asia coming up today and unexpected trio top officials from japan, china and south korea needs. what's on the agenda and can 3 countries with so much mutual distrust a cheese, anything plus the mystery out of space gene? why are top level chinese officials disappearing? and what does it mean for shooting pains? leadership the

my name is melissa can, thanks for joining us. senior leaders from japan, china and south korea, met and sold for a rare trilateral. the last time a similar meeting took place was before the pandemic. in 2000 and 19th, the south re informed minister part of june took the opportunity to say that peace and stability in northeast asia is critical. given that the 3 countries collectively accounted for 20 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of global g, d p. park expressed hope in a follow up try lateral soon. at the highest level, i asked the some leaders here to work closely together to make some, if possible, we didn't this year. i hope the song lead us will do their very best to make these have joined us in the studio is dw is asia analyst. clifford kuhn and

clifford there was another big trilateral last month involving south korea and japan. but the americans were hosting at camp david. so now there's this a tell us how do we interpret what we're seeing this week? well, i think the, the music and comp, david really set alarm bells ringing and invasion comp. david has a huge residence on beijing studies of history. this is a very important place and diplomatic history in the us. so i think when they saw that 2 key regional players like south korea and japan were amazing, the u. s. and that they were discussing security concerns and trade issues and all these kind of issues that china really worries about. i think it definitely woke china up to the need that it needs to start doing stuff about its neighbors. it needs to start looking at it again, the country with 14 land borders and 8 c borders. and it has difficult relations with a lot of its neighbors, but these to south korea and japan are key of key importance. so china is starting this diplomatic process maybe with, by dealing with um,

by dealing with these 2. i remember being on a trip to japan quite a number of years ago at the beginning of shooting kings leadership and the foreign affairs experts, there were absolutely terrified of china. they were very, very worried. i can only imagine that things are even more serious now in terms of tokyo's thinking on this and yet they're meeting china. i mean, they must be very scared, right? i think they are. i mean, these are neighbors. these are um, china's rise has been remarkable. japan was always top dog and asia suddenly it's, it's been pushed into 2nd place in asia into 3rd place, and the global among the global economy. it's, it's, it's having to do with a rising china and it's causing a lot of difficulty. and vines, with vast, is also china's influence in north korea. north korea is a big factor and why at the 3 of these are amazing. it will be because a south korea will be hoping that china can use its influence there and,

and japan would also be hoping that china can do something about that. and the crazy thing in all of this is that each of these countries, including the united states, their biggest trading partner, is china. so you have this economic angle, um, how do you square that round hole with the a political interest that each country has? what a lot of the debate recently has been about economic coercion about china using economic coercion to exert political pressure on, on the neighboring countries. i'm on the other major regional players, including japan and south korea in 2017, when the us installed a missile system there didn't jump at china, responded with, with uh, economic coercion. on several occasions. over the years, it's done the same thing to japan and really major pon realize just how dependent it's become on the economy. so i think this is a very important, a very important aspect to these now. um, thank you so much, clifford. if you don't mind standing by industry, he will want your expertise uh for the next story because you would know,

judging from appearances at that, try lateral summit that there is trouble of brewing back home. but that has been the case in the gene, notably on the diplomatic front with the disappearances of high level chinese officials. that has worried other countries and raised lots of questions about what is happening with teaching king and his leadership of the china's ruling communist party loves public displays of power, glittering sporting events such as the ongoing asian games and hung jo. impressive parades highlighting china's swelling. military muscle and red flag for student political gatherings. leadership, jim ping has carved at absolute authority as party boss, army chief and president, and no one that side. the parties inner circle really knows what happens inside the black box. that is, chinese power politics. know china is experiencing an unprecedented period of

uncertainty. the economy is slowing down to china. sentiment is growing among beijing's regional neighbors and in the west. more generally. the result of all this volatility is a summer of purges in china in june, just 3 months after she and belle just carpenters at the annual national people's congress is one time ally. foreign minister chin gang suddenly disappeared. he was reportedly jettisoned because he'd had an extramarital affair and a love child with a chinese tv journalist during his time is basing them pastor to washington. he's not being seen since next to go was the commander of the people's liberation army rock and force the you show this elite p l a unit which overseas land based missile defense was massively upgraded as a pet project if she himself, in 2016, the rugged force would play a key role in new taiwan invasion scenario. then in september,

another if she's process jay's, the defense minister d sean crew also disappeared. the was another march appointment on his fate brought further attention on corruption and the armed forces. some see it as a power play within the upper echelons of the military. while the public display speak to power. so it's growing signs of unusual volatility in the high ranks of chinese politics can be seen as a sign of instability. and she's leadership. well turning to clifford at kuhn and once again i think there's 2 ways of interpreting what's happening on the one hand shooting thing is very powerful, perhaps all powerful because he can yank any high level chinese official from his or her post. on the other hand though, he selected these people in the 1st place. so isn't it a sign of weakness if he then yanks them off their post, it means that he didn't make the right decision in the 1st place. so between these

2 alternatives, clifford, how should we be looking at this? well, i think what's happened is we've become used to dealing with china and dealing with the commas party as if it's like a western political party. but in fact, it's a classical marxist lennon hist communist party, which acts very much in the same way as comments parties have behaved. over the last 100 years, we saw it in russia in soviet russia we had with styling on his purge as they happens. and they've happens in nearly every communist society. so she didn't grew up with these parges, his own father, she's young soon was, uh, was uh, purged. and he was also send a wager in the culture revolution. he grew up in this kind of culture. so for him, this is a way of consolidating his power of, of making sure that he knows their place and also maybe getting rid of rivals. and then there's also in elements which we've also known from history that maybe this down to paranoid there. maybe he's seeing threats now,

maybe in some ways that is a sign of weakness. but as far as he's concerned, this is a way of a making sure that she didn't think is number one, and that, that he's at the center of power. and that he's, that the center of decision making when it comes to how things work in china. so it looks strange to us. it is pretty normal for him in terms of how he might deal with conflict. it's all he's ever known. so are we seeing any signs that these disappearances are impacting the respective ministries? we've had people from the military, from the foreign ministry disappear. i think what's interesting is he has 3 jobs. he's had of the company's party. he's the president and he's head of the army on the central military commission. i think what this does is of establishes power base with in the army on what he sees more for us, a firm or forcing. and he's keeping the generals on their toes. he's moving them around, he's done this several times since he came to power in 2012. and i think we're,

we're seeing that it's definitely impacting on how the, on how the army is behaving. because there's a lot of issues that the army is dealing with, such as a possible invasion of taiwan. he wants to make, she wants to make sure that he's the top dog when it comes to issues like preparing for that sort of situation. also a territorial expire shannon in the south china sea and the development of the navy . she wants to be the one in control. so in terms of how the ministries operate, how the far as the defense ministry operates, it's having to defer to she on pretty much every different decision that it makes. and we've seen a lot of, um, it's not just these last 2 incidents from the military, quite a number of high level military officials have been taken off their post and disappear. um, are we seeing any signs of these disappearances impacting things globally, externally? well, i think the disappearance of chin gong is very interesting because that shows how the foreign ministry is, you know, how it's, he's someone who's well known overseas. he was the master to washington. he's and i

think his disappearance certainly has people scratching their heads and we had a manual around the us ambassador to japan who was tweeting that saying that this is like, and i get the christie novel, that there's so many people disappearing and changing things cabinet. so clearly it's something that the international diplomatic community is aware of and politically, and it's being read as a sign that in some ways he's feeling the impact of the us is growing improvements in asia, as we've seen through his growing growing closest with, with japan and korea, and i think it's definitely something that he feels he has to deal with. there's also another aspect to this and to if you look at the economy because isn't in some ways the dealing with jack my and with alibaba, a form of purge, or the way the broad or crack down on the, on the tech sector. these are also kind of purges within this class ago, communist model because it's a way of a searching authority. and a way of showing that he's that he's,

he's top dog in all areas of society. the tech sector wasn't a big issue in the, in the, in the stylist era, but now it's become one of the main bedrock, some support for huge and ping and china. i think it's really important to underscore that because we think of purchase as something from the 20th century but a it, it's happened in the 21st century, but it is right before our eyes. and so any signs that the, i know you can't pronounce to k, but any signs, but she thinking will disappear, more people. well, there's lots of rumors at the moment that there's more to come in the army that he's going to be further in batches, power in the army. again, suggesting that maybe something is happening on taiwan or something is happening on the south china sea. certainly that there's going to be more search witnessed by china. so i don't think he's finished. yes, i'm going on the previous classical models. there's still a way to go. well, clifford coon and thanks so much for your time as always with these leadership things, they get more paranoid as they hold onto power year after year. that's it for the

program. as always, you can catch us on social media and on our website dw dot com, forward slash asia. my name is melissa chan. thanks for watching the eco india, the floods in himself to dish and other regions of india swift away entire villages until many 9 environmental active as to now demanding building projects, people sustainable and designed to protect both human environment. eco india. next on the dw was secret sly behind the

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