with every classroom damaged or destroyed, with every child witnessing the horror of war, every family fling the violence. we can't risk losing any tire generation of children to death, fear, and despair. because they are the future of serious. 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 official 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 $3.00 and $4.00 and minister park gin took the opportunity to say that peace and stability in northeast asia is critical. given that the 3 countries collectively account for 20 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of global g d p. park expressed hope in a follow up trilateral soon. at the highest level, i asked the some leaders here to work closely together to make some, if possible we didn't dc or as i hope to, some leaders will do their very best to make this happen. joining us in the studio is dw 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 and beijing studies of history. this is a very important place in diplomatic history in the us. so i think when they saw that 2 key regional players like south korea and japan were meeting 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. there 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. and the 3rd place in the global that among the global economy is, it's, it's, it's having to do with a rise in china. and it's causing a lot of difficulty. and vines, with vast, is also china's improvements in north korea. north korea is a big factor and why the 3 of these are missing? it will be because the 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, and 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. how do you square that round hole with the a political interest that each country has? well, a lot of the debate recently it's been about economic coercion to buy 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 miss our system. they're at a different job 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, 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 here, we want your expertise uh for the next story. because you wouldn't know,

judging from appearances at that trilateral 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 the 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. please ring sporting events such as the ongoing asian games in hon. jo, impressive parades highlighting china is swelling, military muscle, and red flag for student political gatherings need or she, jim ping has carved at absolute authority as party boss, army chief and president, and no one outside the party's inner circle really knows what happens inside the black box. that is, chinese power politics. now 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. it in june, just 3 months after she unveiled his compliments that the annual national people's congress is one time ally foreign minister chin gang suddenly disappeared. he was reportedly jettisoned because he taught an extramarital affair and a love child with a chinese tv journalist during his time is basing that bastard to washington. he's not being seen since next to go was the commander of the people's liberation army rocket 4th. the you show this elite p l a unit which overseas land face missile defense was massively upgraded as a pet project if she himself, in 2016 the rocket force will play a key role in new taiwan invasion scenario. so then in september,

another if she's process jay's, the defense minister d sean for 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 attorneys 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 company's party as if it's like a western political party. but in fact, it's a classical marxist letter in a 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 purges they happened 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, i was 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 those, their place also may be getting rid of rivals. and then there's also in elements which we've also known from history, the, maybe the paranoia there may be. 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 making sure that children ping is number one, and that he's at the center of power. and that he's 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 and the central military commission. and i think what this does is it establishes power base with in the army on what he sees it more for as 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

seeing that it's definitely impacting on how the on how the army is behaving because, um, there's a lot of issues that the armies 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, territory looks like action in, 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 june 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 investors who 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 dot saying that this is, i cannot get the christie novel that there's so many people disappearing and changing things cabinet. so clearly it's something that the international, different amount of community is aware of. and politically, it's being read as a sign that in some ways he's feeling the impact of the u. s. is growing influenced 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 inter, if you look at the economy because isn't in some ways the dealing with jack my and with alibaba 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 of 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 science, 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. so trying to see, certainly that there's going to be more assertiveness 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 couldn't think 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 d, w dot com, forward slash asia. my name is melissa chan. thanks for watching the i just got your issues with a lot say what crazy. the model, $700.00 children are arrested every year. israel pod line again coming to me and mine is the most common reason throwing stones at is

eunice, this has accused israel of crimes against humanity to fuse the day starts september 30th on d, double the. the busy or of on truck to develop its own hydrogen economy efforts are underway to develop an industry for a few, but could one day enable us to fly without the guilt of destroying the promise, with dirty emissions. all the coming up sizes of stars up finders had to musics octoberfest and hopes open during is best. this is the only business i paid for it and thanks for joining me. the world needs to be carbonized and it needs to do so fast in order to avoid the planetary disaster in the search for clean or

alternative fuels, many are pinning their hopes on hydrogen. although its production still overwhelmingly relies on burning fossil fuels, proponents point to the fact that the only by products of consuming is r. he's unfortunately no wonder the notoriously dirty aviation industry wants to get on board. this is a groundbreaking flight. the test pilots off with the welds only aircraft that is powered solely by hydrogen. ok, the modified glider belongs to this to get based company h to fly liquid hydrogen is the energy source. and that is opening up. new possibilities must be of in is supposed to be quite what we see is that the storage technology engaged has fall and essentially has the limits allowing us to build a craft with a range of about 1000 kilometers in flu season, stuck with a liquid hydrogen we have an opportunity to cover longer this.