Chinese President Xi Jinping told South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung on Saturday that he was willing to widen cooperation and jointly tackle challenges, while Lee sought Beijing’s help in efforts to resume talks with nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea.
Lee hosted Xi at a state summit and dinner after an Asia-Pacific leaders’ forum in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, Xi’s first visit to the U.S. ally in eleven years.
Beijing attaches great importance to relations with Seoul and sees South Korea as an inseparable cooperative partner, Xi said ahead of the summit, Lee’s office said in a statement.
Lee, who was elected in a snap election in June, has promised to strengthen ties with the United States while not antagonising China and seeking to lower tension with the North.
“I am very positive about the situation in which conditions for engagement with North Korea are being formed,” Lee said, referring to recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea.
“I also hope that South Korea and China will take advantage of these favourable conditions to strengthen strategic communication to resume dialogue with North Korea.”
Lee has called for a phased approach to denuclearising North Korea, starting with engagement and a freeze on further development of nuclear weapons.
In a statement on Saturday, Pyongyang, a military and economic ally of China, dismissed the denuclearisation agenda as an unrealisable “pipe dream”.
Trade focus at summit
Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific Rim nations wrapped up the annual summit Saturday with a statement underscoring regional economic cooperation, just days after the presidents of the United States and China agreed to dial down their trade war.
Leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit issued a joint statement pledging greater cooperation to overcome shared challenges in a global economy hit hard by trade tensions between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump and Xi — who met on the sidelines of the APEC summit — dialed back earlier steps and agreed to de-escalate trade tensions. Trump, known for his dismissal of multilateralism, quickly left South Korea after the agreement with Xi, allowing the Chinese president to steal the limelight at the summit.
The joint statement declared that the APEC leaders “acknowledge the global trading system continues to face significant challenge.”
“We reaffirm our shared recognition that robust trade and investment are vital to the growth and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region,” it says.
Jeonghun Min, a professor at South Korea’s National Diplomatic Academy, said the statement avoided direct language supporting “free and open trade,” but still managed to endorse economic cooperation and multilateralism, which embody “the very purpose of free trade
“It wasn’t possible to leave that out entirely,” said Min.
The joint declaration also said that APEC members remain committed to the Putrajaya Vision 2040, a new 20-year growth vision adopted in 2020 that calls for a trade environment that’s “free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable.”
