Premier Li Keqiang will meet with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japan's Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Sunday for the sixth China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit. The meeting, which will be held at the Yeongbingwan guest house in the South Korean president's office and resident known as the Blue House, is the first such gathering between representatives of the three nations since a dispute erupted between them in 2012.

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Prior to the meeting, Park is expected to hold bilateral talks with Premier Li on Friday. On Monday, she is scheduled to have a similar meeting with Japan's Abe.

Experts have welcomed the thaw in the dispute between the East Asian neighbors, whose GDP makes up about 70 percent of Asia's output.

Economic cooperation will be on top of the agenda in the upcoming gathering, according to Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga. During the summit, the leaders of the three countries are expected to discuss ways to deepen cooperation with one another, including promoting free trade and economic integration, as well as technology exchange and boosting production capacity, Xinhua reported.

"At the summit, we are planning to discuss practical ideas for stronger collaboration in economic and social areas, sustainable development, and exchanges of people and culture, and to trade a broad range of perspectives on regional and international issues such as the Northeast Asian political environment, cooperation in East Asia, and international economic trends," South Korea's senior secretary for foreign affairs and national security Kim Kyou-hyun told the press on Wednesday.

While the three countries are willing to mend their strained ties, it is worth pointing out that the cause of their rift remains unresolved. In 2012, the China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit was suspended after Tokyo attempted to unilaterally appropriate the Diaoyu islands (known as Senkaku Islands in Japan). The maritime territory is jointly contested by China and Japan.

On Thursday, China warned Japan to stop scrambling its military jets carrying out surveillance of the disputed territory. According to China's defense ministry spokesman Yang Yujun, since September Japan has interfered with the flights of up to 117 Chinese military aircrafts.

While China and Japan wrangle over their territorial dispute, Tokyo and Seoul have also not seen eye-to-eye over the former's failure to apologize for forcing South Korean and Chinese women (so called "comfort women") into prostitution during the Second World War.

This issue was at the heart of the conflict between South Korea and Japan in 2012. According to Kim, South Korean President Park will bring up the issue when she meets Abe. South Korean officials have demanded that Japan apologizes to these 'comfort women' and offers them some form of compensation. So far, while Abe has upheld the apologies of his predecessors for Japan's activities during World War II, he has refused to offer any apology of his own - saying Japan must move on from that aspect of her history.

"No matter what kind of effort we may take, the sorrows of those who lost their family members and the painful memories of those who underwent immense sufferings by the destructions of war will never be healed," Abe said during a speech to mark the 70^th anniversary of World War II in August.

While a lot of brouhaha surrounds the upcoming China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit, many experts have voiced low expectations for the gathering due to the aforementioned outstanding issues.

TagsChina-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Summit, China-Japan Diaoyu Island Dispute, Diaoyu Islands (Senakaku Islands), Japan Comfort Women, Park Geun Hye