GYEONGJU – South Korean President Lee Jae Myung urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Nov 1 to help Seoul “resume dialogue” with North Korea as they met for their first summit.

“I hope that South Korea and China will strengthen strategic communication... and work together to resume dialogue with the North,” Mr Lee told Mr Xi, according to the South Korean presidential office.

Stressing the need for “stability” in the region, Mr Lee noted “recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea” – a reference to Pyongyang leader Kim Jong Un’s recent attendance at a major military parade in Beijing.

Those meetings, Mr Lee said, “are helping to create conditions for renewed engagement with Pyongyang”.

Seoul has long trodden a fine line between top trading partner China and the United States, the South’s chief defence guarantor.

Mr Lee told Mr Xi that economic relations were developing from “a vertical structure of economic cooperation to a more horizontal and mutually beneficial one”.

“We must work together to build a relationship that delivers shared prosperity,” he said.

Chinese leader Xi met his South Korean counterpart after taking centre stage at an Asian summit in the wake of

.

The talks on the sidelines of the Apec gathering came on the final day of Mr Xi’s first trip to South Korea in over a decade, and a day after his

that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties.

Mr Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Oct 30 after sealing a trade war pause with Mr Xi, with the two

that has roiled markets and disrupted global supply chains.

Mr Trump’s departure left the Chinese leader

at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, where he has framed Beijing as a counterweight to a US-led international order.

on Nov 1, Mr Xi said the 2026 Apec meeting would take place in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

Leaders also agreed to deepen cooperation on artificial intelligence, as well as issues like low birth rates, population ageing and urbanisation.

The Chinese leader has used the summit to rekindle old ties with nations frozen by Beijing for years.

Mr Xi met on Oct 31 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the event – the first formal talks between the two countries’ leaders since 2017.

He told the Liberal leader he was determined to work together to get relations back on the “right track” and invited Mr Carney to visit China.

Mr Xi also

for the first time since she was appointed in October.

She said she told Mr Xi that she wanted a “strategic and mutually beneficial relationship between Japan and China”.

But she told reporters that she also had raised a number of thorny issues with the Chinese leader, saying that it was “important for us to engage in direct, candid dialogue”.

The Chinese leader then turned his attention to the South Korean president in what was their first sit-down meeting since

.

Mr Lee welcomed Mr Xi at a grand opening ceremony complete with soldiers wearing traditional garb, footage shared by South Korean broadcaster Yonhap TV showed.

Mr Lee to ‘reassure Beijing’

Seoul has long trodden a fine line between top trading partner China and defence guarantor the United States.

Relations with China soured in 2016 after Seoul agreed to deploy the US-made Thaad missile defence system.

Beijing hit back with sweeping economic retaliation, restricting South Korean businesses and banning group tours.

Cultural spats – including China’s claims over the origins of the Korean staple dish kimchi – have also soured public opinion against Beijing.

South Korea – which this week also

– remains heavily dependent on trade with its vast Asian neighbour.

Mr Lee will likely try to “reassure Beijing that South Korea’s alignment with the United States does not preclude pragmatic economic engagement with China”, Mr Seong-Hyon Lee, a scholar at the Harvard University Asia Centre.

The South Korean leader is keen to “seek a measure of economic stability and a more predictable floor in bilateral relations”, he told AFP.

Also hanging over relations are Beijing’s close ties with North Korea, which remains technically at war with the South.

Mr Lee plans to raise the issue of “denuclearisation” with Mr Xi, as well as broader peace efforts on the peninsula, Seoul’s presidential office said.

Ahead of Mr Lee and Mr Xi’s meeting, Pyongyang

as a “pipe dream” which “can never be realised even if it talks about it a thousand times”.

Speaking to reporters ahead of his meeting with Mr Xi, Mr Lee said Beijing had a key role to play “in achieving peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.

“A stable peninsula is essential for stability in North-east Asia, and that in turn aligns with China’s own interests. We expect China to play a significant role in this regard,” he said. AFP