Hosting 1st Trump-Xi summit offers both risk, opportunity for Seoul — chance to ease rivalry amid challenge of preserving APEC’s cooperative core

GYEONGJU, North Gyeongsang Province — Seoul is stepping onto the APEC summit stage with a daunting task: to save the forum’s core, steady it amid global headwinds and steer leaders toward consensus on what matters most for sustainable and shared growth in the Asia-Pacific region.

Once shorthand for the region’s shared prosperity, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation now gathers its leaders along widening fault lines, as the region is squeezed between rival centers of gravity with dwindling space for genuine multilateralism.

In Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, the question this week is whether regional cooperation and integration in the Asia-Pacific region can withstand the global whirlwind of intensifying fragmentation, rising protectionism and the weaponization of trade.

Hosting the APEC summit for the first time in two decades is no mere ceremonial showcase for Seoul. It is a proving ground for its leadership as a middle power caught between Washington and Beijing’s strategic rivalry.

Seoul’s chairship has become a real-time test of President Lee Jae Myung’s “pragmatic diplomacy” — not only in sustaining APEC’s cooperative spirit, but also in leveraging it to navigate the broader web of diplomatic challenges facing South Korea.

Seoul’s to-do list is long: navigating the deepening US-China rivalry, anchoring the US alliance, recalibrating ties with Beijing, hedging against tightening North Korea-China-Russia alignment and sustaining a fragile reset with Tokyo under new leadership.

Ultimate test of host diplomacy

“This APEC is the ultimate test of Seoul’s ‘host diplomacy,’’’ John Delury, a senior fellow at the Asia Society, told The Korea Herald.

“The No. 1 challenge will be managing the 24 hours that (US President) Donald Trump is on the peninsula. Lee Jae Myung will want a positive summit with Trump, one that looks good to the public.’’

Seoul’s next order of business will be to do everything possible to set the stage for a cordial meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping — a diplomatic moment that could serve as both opportunity and obstacle for South Korea’s stewardship of the APEC summit.

“The opportunity to host the first US-China leaders’ meeting of the second Trump term aligns well with Korea’s strategic interests in softening the edges of great power competition and leaving room for ‘win-win’ economic cooperation of the kind that has allowed Korea, and much of the Asia-Pacific region, to prosper,” Delury said.

Amid this diplomatic choreography, Seoul also faces the broader task of guarding APEC’s core values against mounting protectionism and geopolitical fragmentation compounded by rising tensions.

As chair, South Korea is expected to use its prerogatives to steer the 21 APEC economies toward sustained cooperation and build consensus on issues that matter most for open trade, sustainable growth and regional prosperity.

“As the host country, South Korea has the power to set and shape the summit agenda. At the upcoming Gyeongju APEC summit, South Korea is promoting regional cooperation on trade, AI and sustainability — especially regarding demographic challenges — all of which are closely linked to South Korea's own issues and regional concerns,” Ellen Kim, director of academic affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America, told The Korea Herald.

“Amid rising US-China competition and increasing uncertainties, South Korea's ability to build regional consensus on these agenda items will be crucial for maintaining the regional trade order and pursuing shared goals of peace, stability and prosperity.”

Seoul has set cooperation in artificial intelligence and responses to demographic change and their attendant challenges as the two key areas for yielding tangible outcomes at APEC 2025, held under the theme, “Building a Sustainable Tomorrow.”

The theater and the test

Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies, underscored the importance of fully harnessing the “opportunity to shape the agenda and signal what issues countries should be paying attention to in the global governance space.”

Making the most of that opportunity will be critical to ensuring APEC 2025 is not overshadowed by high-stakes bilateral showmanship, such as that between Lee and Trump or Lee and Xi, on the margins of the summit.

The simultaneous presence of Trump and Xi — the first joint visit by the leaders of the US and China to South Korea since 2012, and their first face-to-face meeting since 2019 — has already taken center stage.

In essence, the Lee administration must ensure that APEC does not fade into the background of high-profile bilateral theatrics, preserving it as a forum of substance rather than a stage for spectacle.

“These meetings demonstrate Seoul’s ability to act as a convenor, but South Korea will have to make sure that the sideline meetings don’t take away from the APEC summit Seoul is hosting, which is still the main event,” Yeo told The Korea Herald.

Straddling US-China fault line

If the optics of the high-stakes Trump-Xi summit define the immediate challenge, the deeper test lies in the substance. The underlying dilemma is how to navigate intensifying US-China strategic competition as Lee Jae Myung prepares for consecutive meetings with both Trump and Xi.

“The APEC summit will become the real test of President Lee's ‘pragmatic diplomacy’ in the sense that he will have to show a delicate balance between Washington and Beijing, especially given his earlier statements that his pragmatic diplomacy is built on the foundation of a strong US-ROK alliance,” Ellen Kim said. ROK refers to South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

“For President Lee, the room to maneuver between Washington and Beijing is becoming increasingly limited in the current strategic environment. However, compared to his predecessor, Lee is likely to show a greater willingness to improve South Korea's relationship with China during his meeting with Xi.”

Seoul should not only act as a broker between Washington and Beijing, but proactively shape their interaction through APEC in ways that serve its own interests.

“It is important for President Lee to be seen as an independent actor rather than driven by forces beyond his control,” Troy Stangarone, a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology, told the Korea Herald.

“No country can shape the US-China bilateral relationship, but Korea needs to use deft diplomacy to keep APEC on track. This is why Korea shaping the APEC agenda is important.”

Stangarone believes the Lee administration should leverage APEC as an"opportunity to reshape its relationship" with Washington and Beijing — better serving its national interest.

“The Lee administration’s insistence that any new trade deal with the United States reflects Korea’s interest is the beginning of the process, but Korea needs to also confront the reality that China’s industrial policies are a threat to its own economy and seek more balanced relations with China.”

Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, underscored that Seoul’s strategy should transcend the tightrope act between Washington and Beijing.

“Lee Jae Myung should advance Korean interests with each country while avoiding the perception that he is attempting to be a neutral broker,” Cronin told The Korea Herald.

In practice, that means walking a line not of neutrality, but of calibration — engaging both Washington and Beijing without letting either dictate the terms of Seoul’s diplomacy.

“(Lee) can underscore Korea-China trade while avoiding the pitfalls of allowing Xi to exploit contradictions and drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington amid frustration with tariffs and other US policies,” Cronin said.

“At the same time, Lee can move forward with some other elements of the US-Korea investment cooperation without necessarily agreeing yet on all the rules of the road governing the general pledge of $350 billion investment in the United States.”

Seoul cannot reengineer the structure of global power geometry, but it can dilute its veto by widening the coalition through the logic of middle-power geometry, championed by the APEC platform.

“South Korea should focus as much as possible on not only advancing relations with the US and stabilizing relations with China, but also truly beginning a process of cooperating with other middle powers to create international order-building mechanisms undermined by the US and China,” said Mason Richey, a professor at the Graduate School of International and Area Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

APEC as counter to emerging axis

But the scope for Seoul’s middle-power maneuvering is narrowing. Beyond the US-China rivalry, a darker strategic horizon looms to its north.

The tightening alignment among North Korea, China and Russia has compressed Seoul’s diplomatic bandwidth and threatens to erode the very maneuvering space on which a middle power depends.

The upcoming APEC summit offers Seoul a crucial opportunity to project a counternarrative to this emerging tripartite alignment.

Seoul can use APEC to demonstrate that inclusive economic cooperation — not bloc alignment — offers the most credible and profitable path forward.

“Russia and North Korea have sacrificed economic gains for military advancements, but the rest of the region is focused on economic development and looking for leadership through the US-China rivalry,” Stagarone said.

“By shaping an agenda for discussion on AI, supply chains and the energy transition, Seoul can remind Beijing of the benefits of economic engagement while also creating opportunities to build deeper cooperation in the region.”

Yet APEC’s promise as a vehicle for reshaping regional dynamics has its limits. Economic forums can open doors, but the real test for Seoul still lies in hard security through a stronger alliance.

“South Korea is somewhat limited in its role in reshaping regional dynamics,” Yeo said. “However, Seoul can leverage its relationship with Washington to ensure that conventional and extended nuclear deterrence on the Peninsula are maintained.”

From this vantage point, APEC's additional strategic value for Seoul lies in strengthening trilateral security against a hardening geopolitical reality. APEC provides a vital opportunity to institutionalize coordination with Seoul's core partners,

“APEC will also provide a good forum for senior officials in the US, ROK and Japan to meet following (Prime Minister Sanae) Takaichi’s rise to leadership in Tokyo,” Yeo said.

That assurance will become even more vital should Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agree to an impromptu meeting during Trump's visit to South Korea this week.

“South Korea and Japan will want to ensure that even if there is resumed dialogue between Trump and Kim, that the US will maintain requirements for deterrence and continue and reassure allies,” Yeo stressed.

Deterrence, in other words, must hold precisely in the moments least scripted. When high-level symbolism outruns detailed planning, seamless coordination between allies becomes the real measure of resolve.

Cronin framed the immediate risk bluntly: “One wild card is whether there is a side encounter between President Trump and Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom,” he said. “If there is, the important thing will be to show seamless coordination between the Korean and American presidents.”