Japan-Korea-China Economic Relations

Joshua Meltzer, Fellow Global Economy and Development, The Brookings Institution Mireya Solis, Associate Professor American University Derek Scissors, Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation As Korea strives to be a global leader, the country has concluded several bilateral and multilateral Free Trade Agreements since 2003 and is currently negotiating additional agreements while laying the groundwork for a Korea-Japan-China FTA and considering the resumption of negotiations with Japan. Japan's trade strategy also continues to evolve as it develops a new growth strategy after the natural disasters of 2011. Both Korea and Japan are carefully watching the developments around TPP. In the meantime, China has become the largest trading partner of Korea and Japan and the three countries recently signed a trilateral investment agreement as a potential first step toward a trilateral trade accord. The seminar will assess the current status of the Korean and Japanese trade policies in light of the implementation of the KORUS FTA and the continued discussion of the TPP, Korea-China FTA and Korea-Japan-China FTA.