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(Final Text) The Action Strategy on Trilateral Cooperation among the People's Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (Adopted on 27 November, 2004 by the Three-Party Committee)

The Three-Party Committee, headed by H.E. Mr. Li Zhaoxing, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, H.E. Mr. Nobutaka Machimura, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan and H.E. Mr. Ban Kimoon, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea,
Recalling the Joint Declaration on the Promotion of Tripartite Cooperation among the People's Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea ( Hereinafter referred to as the "Joint Declaration") issued at the Trilateral Summit on October 7, 2003 at Bali, Indonesia;
Recalling also the decision reached at the inaugural meeting of the Three-Party Committee held on June 21, 2004 in Qindao, China;
Reaffirming the five fundamental views shared among the leaders in the Joint Declaration as the basic principles of the trilateral cooperation;
Noting that the current degree of economic interdependence among China, Japan and Korea has risen to an unprecedented level which has provided a solid foundation for further cooperation among them;
Recognizing the importance of taking advantage of mutual complementation among the three countries in furthering the trilateral cooperation;
Recognizing that the trilateral cooperation could serve as an effective framework to achieve economies of scale in a variety of fields;
Noting the importance of the trilateral cooperation in addressing the cross-border issues of our common concerns;
Encouraged by the great progress achieved in the trilateral cooperation with the joint efforts of the three countries, especially the rapid expansion of areas and frameworks including the holding of the several ministerial level meetings;
Recognising that the good momentum of the trilateral cooperation should be maintained and accelerated in order to appropriately respond to the rapidly changing regional and international environment including the wave of globalization permeating various fields particularly in the economic area;
Emphasizing that there is a growing need for the three countries to further strengthen their study, plan, coordination and supervision on the trilateral cooperation;
Acknowledging that closer and comprehensive partnership among the three countries will contribute to peace, stability and development in the region and the world, as well as to our efforts towards community building in East Asia;
Hereby decide:
1.	To formulate an "Action Strategy on Trilateral Cooperation among the People's Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Strategy") which will provide guidelines for the future trilateral cooperation based upon the Joint Declaration (guidelines of each cooperation area are specified in the attached document);
2.	To explore the possibility to formulate the "Plan of Action" involving relevant authorities, which will feature more concrete measures so as to further the Action Strategy;
3.	To coordinate the overall trilateral cooperation activities, particularly those described in the Action Strategy through the Three-Party Committee, as well as other trilateral ministerial meetings;
4.	To submit this Action Strategy to the Trilateral Summit which is scheduled on 29th November, 2004 for endorsement;

(Final Text)

1.	Trade and Investment
(Promoting the Doha Development Agenda Negotiations)
-		The three countries will strengthen trilateral cooperation for an expeditious conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda negotiations while welcoming the WTO General Council's decision, as the basis for reaching agreement in the negotiations.
(Customs, Transportation and Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine)
-		The port authorities of the three countries will continue to hold North East Asia Port Director-General Meeting once a year, exchange views on a broad area of topics on port administration for the development of the three countries' ports, and seek to promote friendly relations among the three countries' port-related officials.
-		The customs authorities of the three countries will increase dialogue and cooperation for trade facilitation through simplifying trade procedures, etc. in the relevant multilateral fora (WTO, APEC, ASEM, WCO, etc.) and bilateral frameworks (economic partnership talks, or joint committee meetings, meetings between customs authorities).@The customs authorities of the three countries confirm the importance of the Customs Mutual Assistance Agreement (CMAA) in bilateral basis, therefore China and Japan have the common recognition that both sides accelerate the negotiation of the CMAA.
(Protection of Intellectual Property Rights)
-		The three countries, reaffirming the importance of IPR protection, will continue to further strengthen the trilateral cooperation at the Trilateral Meeting among the Commissioners of the SIPO, JPO and KIPO and will discuss ways to further improve consultation mechanism and cooperation.
(FTA)
-		The three countries will facilitate the current joint study on the economic effects of possible free trade area among China, Japan and Korea by the three countries' think tanks.
(Aviation)
-		The three countries will promote existing dialogue and cooperation.
(Direct Investment)
-		The three countries will conduct consultations to explore a legal framework concerning investment among the three countries in a timely manner.
(Improvement of Business Environment)
-		The three countries will implement the measures as soon as possible on which the consensus was reached at the joint study. They will establish a mechanism among the governments of the three countries to follow up on the implementation of the suggestions and to produce additional measures for the improvement of the business environment with inputs from the business sector. The progress will be reported through the Economic Director-Generals' meeting to the annual ministerial meetings.
(Settling Economic Disputes)
-		The three countries will promote exchange of information through the existing trilateral mechanisms and encourage prior consultations.
2.	ICT Industry
-		The three countries will promote trilateral cooperation in the information and communications area through the existing working groups, forums and liaison system, meanwhile further encouraging the participation of ICT enterprises and research institutions. The three countries will carry out study on Ubiquitous Network, as agreed at the 3 rd China-Japan-Korea ICT Ministers' Meeting in July 2004.
3.	Environmental Protection
-		The three countries will continue Tripartite Environmental Ministers Meeting (TEMM) and evaluate and review TEMM projects so that they will develop and expand into various environmental cooperation among the three countries. Three countries will also expand the trilateral cooperation in the various frameworks in the environmental area (NOWPAP, NEASPEC, EANET, AFP, prevention and control of dust and sandstorms, etc.).
-		The three countries will continue to hold the "Joint Meeting for Seasonal Prediction of East Asian Monsoon" aiming to make more use of seasonal prediction for social and economic development by inviting not only seasonal forecasters from meteorological agencies and researchers from research institutions and universities but participants from broader areas.
-		The three countries will work to improve the Northeast Asia Regional - Global Ocean Observing System (NEAR-GOOS) mainly with the working group newly established in accordance with priority issues to be tackled, such as data exchange, and also to strengthen the observation network, through NEAR-GOOS.
-		The three countries will make further cooperative efforts to establish a sound material-cycle society in east/south-east Asia, in particular, through the promotion of 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle).
-		The three countries will strengthen contribution and cooperation under the framework of PEMSEA for sustainable development for East Asian seas by implementing SDS-SEA adopted in the "Ministerial Forum on the Sustainable Development of the Seas of East Asia" held in December 2003.
-		The three countries will cooperate to ensure that the UNESCAP Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development in Asia and in the Pacific will provide a valuable contribution to the sustainable development of the Asia-Pacific region and a momentum in the subregional environmental cooperation in Northeast Asia.
4.	Disaster Prevention and Management
-		Three countries will strengthen China-Japan-Korea cooperation in the disaster reduction area.
-		The three countries will promote cooperation with each other for reduction of flood damage through the International Flood Network (IFNet), established at Japan's initiative at the 3rd World Water Forum held in March 2003 in Japan.
-		The three countries will strengthen technical cooperation on flood hazard map and mudslide disaster forecast and alarm system through the Typhoon Committee established by Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
-		The three countries will strengthen trilateral cooperation in the area of earthquake disaster mitigation through the established trilateral meeting among seismic authorities of the three countries.
5.	Energy
-		The three countries will promote trilateral cooperation in strengthening energy security for the region as a whole, recognizing the importance of energy efficiency and its conservation. In this regard, the three countries will work together to achieve the goal, developing strategic energy dialogue through the frameworks existing and in progress.
6.	Financial Cooperation
-		The three countries will strengthen the regional financial cooperation and conduct economic policy dialogue under the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers' process.
7.	Science and Technology
-		The three countries will set up a China-Japan-Korea ministerial meeting on science and technology cooperation. The three countries are also planning to start studying measures to strengthen Asian partnership, such as a joint study and academic research exchange.
-		The three countries together with other parties will continue to cooperate for the early launch of the ITER project within the six-party framework aiming at its successful implementation.
8.	Tourism
-		On the basis of the memorandum exchanged among the three countries' Tourist authorities, the three countries will improve visibility of three countries as tourism destination on a global level and promote specific measures to vitalize their tourism industry, such as circular tours going around the three countries.
9.	Fishery Resource Conservation
-		The three countries will hold a working level meeting of fisheries authorities and a high level meeting in order to work out effective and concrete ways of fishery management and planning for the sustainable use and preservation of fishery resources when it is necessary. The three countries will explore the possibility of the establishment of a trilateral meeting among top officials of the fisheries research institutes, as well as of a trilateral consultative mechanism in private sector.
10.	Cultural and People-to-People Exchanges
(Cultural Exchanges, People-to-People Exchanges)
-		The three countries will make utmost effort in order to promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
-		The three countries will continue to encourage cultural cooperation and people-to-people@exchanges through support to and promotion of various activities such as establishing networks of the alumni students from the three countries who studied in either of the remaining two, promoting exchange of the youth, young leaders and performing artists.
-		The three countries will carry out cultural industry cooperation and continue to hold the China-Japan-Korea Cultural Content Industry Forum.
-		The three countries will further promote exchanges in the field of sports among the three countries through various sports events such as "Japan-Korea-China Junior Exchange Meeting" and "Korea-China-Japan A3 Soccer Champions Cup".
(Public Personnel Administration)
-		The three countries will promote close trilateral cooperation and exchanges in the public personnel administration area through the meetings of the heads of personnel authorities of the three countries: Ministry of Personnel of the People's Republic of China, National Personnel Authority of Japan and Civil Service Commission of the Republic of Korea.
(Education)
-		The three countries will further education cooperation through promoting high level consultations.
-		The three countries will continue to encourage cooperation on the training of highly qualified personnel.
-		The three countries will facilitate mutual recognition of academic degrees, credits and records.
-		The three countries will continue to promote student exchanges among higher educational institutions in the three countries and the exchange programs for high school students.
(Media Exchange)
-		The three countries will support media exchanges through invitation programs and other means for further deepening and broadening mutual understanding among the three countries.
(Exchanges between local governments)
-		The three countries will support the exchanges of local governments by facilitating the establishment of sister cities.
11.	International Affairs
-		The three countries will support the ongoing process of the reform of the United Nations and its principal organs, including the General Assembly and the Security Council, with a view to strengthening and enhancing the representativeness, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of the UN system.
12.	Asian Regional Cooperation
-		The three countries will contribute to the formation of an East Asian community through the promotion of ASEAN, China, Japan and Korea cooperation including implementation of the measures of the EASG Final Report. For the purpose of working on the concept and approaches for building an East Asian community, the three countries will further deepen discussions at various levels.
-		The three countries will continue the cooperation under the APEC in key areas including achieving the Bogor Goals of free trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region.
-		The three countries will promote exchanges and cooperation within the framework of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) process in order to enhance the ARF's role for peace and stability in the region. To this end, the three countries will continue to support the development of the ARF Security Policy Conference and will work together to activate ARF experts/eminent persons (EEPs) activities in accordance with the Guidelines for the Operation of the ARF EEPs.
-		The three countries will strengthen the trilateral cooperation within the ASEM process, by (1) systemizing the hand-over of the role of the Coordinator by exchanging information and carrying out close consultation on a regular basis, and (2) holding regular meetings at the director-general level on ASEM matters.
-		The three countries will strengthen the Regional Policy Dialogue at the various levels.
-		The three countries will launch a China-Japan-Korea director general level meeting on their Latin American policies, including the cooperation among three countries, inter alia, within the framework of the Forum for East Asia and Latin America Cooperation.
-		The three countries will exchange information on their policies over the Mekong Region development as part of the efforts to strengthen East Asian regional cooperation.
-		The three countries will continue to discuss various issues of common concern for Asian countries through the occasion of ACD ( Asia Cooperation Dialogue ).
13.	Security
(Security)
-		The three countries will strive to have more frequent contacts among the heads of the defense authorities of the three countries and to promote working level and senior official level exchanges for the mutual confidence building among the three countries.
(Disarmament and Nonproliferation)
-		The three countries will cooperate to strengthen global nonproliferation mechanism.
-		The three countries will strengthen their cooperation toward enhancing the law enforcement capability over export controls, through Asian Export Control Policy Dialogue and the Asian Export Control Seminar to enable private sectors to acquire necessary expertise.
(The Six Party Talks)
-		The three countries will promote close consultations and cooperation for the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through the Six-Party Talks, while addressing the nuclear issue and related concerns of the Parties and working together to maintain peace and stability on the Peninsula. They will further strengthen close coordination to expeditiously achieve substantive progress at the Six-Party Talks.
14.	Social and Cross-Boarder Issues
-		The three countries will enhance mutual cooperation and collaboration with other Asian countries in the field of maritime security, such as countermeasures against piracy and maritime terrorism.
-		The three countries will cooperate in establishing a regional network for supervision and inspection of key infectious disease under the ASEAN, China, Japan and Korea framework in collaboration with WHO, the three countries will also timely brief each other and report to WHO on the epidemic situation and carry out regional joint-prevention and joint-control of infectious diseases. The three countries will exchange their epidemiology and laboratory technologies and explore the possibility of establishing a joint consultative mechanism on prevention and cure of infectious diseases.
-		The three countries will continue to fight against HIV/AIDS reaffirming their commitment to the implementation of the Declaration of Commitment issued at the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS.
End