China, Japan, South Korea agree on North's nukes

The Latest on the Japan-China-South Korea trilateral summit (all times local):

1 p.m.

China, Japan and South Korea have agreed to work together to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and on a three-way and regional free trade agreements.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrives at the Haneda international airport in Tokyo, Tuesday, May 8, 2018. Li is on a four-day visit to Japan. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

The agreements came Wednesday at a meeting in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

It was the first such trilateral summit since November 2015.

Abe reiterated Japan's position that it would normalize ties with North Korea only if the latter took concrete steps toward abandoning its nuclear and missile programs and resolved the issue of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents.

A Japanese official said the leaders agreed to work toward both a free trade pact among themselves and the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with Southeast Asian nations.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, center, arrives at the Haneda international airport in Tokyo, Tuesday, May 8, 2018. Li is on a four-day visit to Japan. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

10:45 a.m.

China, South Korea and Japan have begun their first trilateral summit in more than two years.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe opened the summit Wednesday in Tokyo with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

They are expected to take up the recent flurry of developments on the Korean peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Moon on April 27 and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this week.

Abe said he hopes North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons in a complete and irreversible way.

Li said China is willing to work with Japan and South Korea to maintain regional stability.

The three-way summit is supposed to happen annually, but hasn't been held since November 2015 because of tense relations between Japan and China.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, left, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, pose for photographers prior to their summit in Tokyo Wednesday, May 9, 2018. The summit is expected to focus on North Korea's nuclear program and on improving the sometimes-frayed ties among the three northeast Asian neighbors. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

9:30 a.m.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has arrived in Japan for a summit with Japan and China that is expected to focus on North Korea's nuclear program and on improving the sometimes-frayed ties among the three northeast Asian neighbors.

Wednesday's summit is the seventh since the three-way meetings started in 2008 but only the first since 2015.

Japanese officials say the meeting comes at a crucial time, sandwiched between an inter-Korean summit and planned talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.2

Moon is expected to brief Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang about his recent summit with Kim.

Japanese officials say they hope the talks will also promote regional trade.

TOKYO (AP) — Juro Kara, who helped shape Japan’s postwar avant-garde theater, defiantly yet playfully transforming the essence of Kabuki aesthetics into modern storytelling, has died. He was 84.

The playwright, director and troupe leader died late Saturday from a blood clot in the brain after he collapsed at home and was rushed to a Tokyo hospital on May 1, his theater group Karagumi said in a statement on Sunday.

Kara, whose real name was Yoshihide Otsuru, rose to stardom in the so-called Japanese underground movement of the 1960s known as “un-gura,” characterized by a kitsch rebellious style also found in his contemporaries Shuji Terayama and Tadashi Suzuki.

Kara’s colorful shows, often in makeshift tents evocative of a traveling circus, rejected the established theatrical modes then dominating modernizing Japan that were mostly Western, middle class and well-behaved.

His plays, such as "Koshimaki Osen,” were characterized by a raw energetic physicality, blatantly devoid of any pretense at naturalism.

Kara once compared his approach to “a womb covered in blood.” His theater came to be known as “the red tent." A wandering group would put on his shows wherever the tents went up, most famously in a spot near a shrine in Shinjuku in downtown Tokyo.

Audiences found themselves immersed in otherworldly, dreamlike settings. The flashy posters that artist Tadanori Yokoo often created for Kara’s works exemplified that signature pop surrealist style.

Kara’s group is still active today, performing shows that carry on his legacy. His theater also served as a breeding ground for some of Japan’s top actors, including Kaoru Kobayashi and the late Jinpachi Nezu.

Born in Tokyo, Kara majored in theater at Meiji University in Tokyo, which boasts an extensive archive of Kara’s works.

In 1983, Kara won the prestigious Akutagawa Award for new writers for his novel “Letters from Sagawa.” He also acted in various films, often in bit character roles, including “Demon Pond,” directed by Masahiro Shinoda.

Funeral arrangements weren't set but will be for family and friends, Karagumi said. Kara is survived by his wife Michiko, sons Gitan Otsuru and Sasuke Otsuru, and daughter Minion Otsuru, all actors.

Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

Juro Kara speaks during a press conference in Osaka, western Japan in March, 2005 after he was appointed as a guest professor at a university. The playwright, director and troupe leader died late Saturday from a blood clot in the brain after he collapsed at home and was rushed to a Tokyo hospital on May 1, his theater group Karagumi said in a statement on Sunday, May 5, 2024. He was 84. (Kyodo News via AP)

Juro Kara speaks during a press conference in Osaka, western Japan in March, 2005 after he was appointed as a guest professor at a university. The playwright, director and troupe leader died late Saturday from a blood clot in the brain after he collapsed at home and was rushed to a Tokyo hospital on May 1, his theater group Karagumi said in a statement on Sunday, May 5, 2024. He was 84. (Kyodo News via AP)