The culture ministers of Korea, China and Japan pledged to facilitate cultural exchanges as a way to improve souring relations in Northeast Asia at the fifth trilateral culture summit held in Gwangju on Saturday.

In a joint statement issued after the summit, Korean Culture Minister Yoo Jin-ryong, Chinese Culture Minister Cai Wu and Japanese Culture Minister Hakubun Shimomura agreed to cooperate on protecting cultural assets, foster cultural content and promote culture exchanges.

The three ministers also designated a city in each country as an East Asian City of Culture ―Gwangju in Korea, Quanzhou in China and Yokohama in Japan ―which will serve as the main venues for cultural exchange events among the neighboring countries. 

More detailed agenda were discussed at the bilateral meetings on Friday.

Korea and Japan agreed to extend exchanges in culture and sports on the occasion of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

“Three countries are close geographically and culturally. The East Asian City of Culture will be an opportunity to raise the level of cultural cooperation and improve value for East Asian culture,” said Chinese Culture Minister Cai Wu.

The Korean and Japanese culture ministers vowed to come up with measures to revive currently stagnant youth exchanges. School field trips were one of the popular youth exchange programs between the two countries.

“We, the three culture ministers, promised to step up efforts to improve relations among the three countries,” said Korean Culture Minister Yoo Jin-ryong.

“I discussed with the Japanese minister ways to revitalize youth exchanges based on our shared belief that our future generations should communicate more.”

Noting that this was the first ministerial-level culture meeting since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office last December, Japanese Culture Minister Shimomura said, “Although we have some political tasks to overcome, we found our common need to foster cultural exchanges in the joint culture agreement for national development for much longer term.”

Korea and China agreed on plans to bolster cultural exchanges through having more Chinese artists hold exhibitions in Korea, strengthening exchanges in the game industry and organizing a cultural meeting that will facilitate cultural exchanges at the private sector level.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)