Fri, December 19, 2008
NEW YORK, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- Several former senior U.S. diplomats have hailed the trilateral meeting of leaders of China, Japan, South Korea in Fukuoka, Japan, saying they were "delighted" to see it happen.
"I am absolutely delighted that China, Japan and South Korea had a three-way meeting, no Americans were there, and that's fine because these countries are eternal neighbors," Donald Gregg, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea told Xinhua recently.
"I thought it was a perfect first step and I hope there will be a lot more of it," he added.
Gregg, who is current chairman of the New York-based Korea Society, said the South Koreans had a financial meltdown 10 years ago and "they were confident and they got over it in two years, so I think we (Americans) ought to pay attention to how they did it and try to do the same thing ourselves."
Evans Revere, who was Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka, Japan, and served at the U.S. embassies in Tokyo and Beijing, said the meeting was "historically important."
"As an American and former diplomat, I was encouraged to see the leaders of these three important countries in Northeast Asia getting together," he said.
"Some people have somehow suggested that America or Americans are uncomfortable with this," he said. "I don't think so and I think we are very comfortable with this."
There are a lots of combinations of dialogues that can take place bilaterally, trilaterally, quadrilaterally, so "this is an extremely important dialogue and I was glad to see it happen," he added.
"The fact that these three key world economies, are all located in the same neighborhood, all getting together and discussing constructive ways to deal with these crises is a very good thing, " said Revere, who was Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs United States Department of State.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak held a tripartite summit meeting in Fukuoka Saturday to promote cooperation in addressing the global financial meltdown. At the meeting, the leaders also discussed trilateral ties, the ongoing global financial crisis and other issues of common concern.
