HONG KONG — South Korea’s foreign minister met his Chinese counterpart within the southern Chinese metropolis of Xiamen on Saturday, as Seoul seeks to strengthen ties with its high shopping and selling associate whilst U.S.-China relatives remain strained.
Before the time out, South Korea’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong suggested reporters that he expected North Korea to be a key anguish in talks with Wang Yi.
In his opening assertion, Wang stated China and South Korea will “watch a route of for a political resolution of the Korean Peninsula anguish,” as fragment of pursuing policies for permanent peace amid North Korea’s nuclear standoff with Washington.
Chung stated both China and South Korea fragment the aim of “total denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.
He stated South Korea asks China “to continue serving a constructive characteristic within the valid management of the anguish on the Korean Peninsula and reaching ample growth within the Korean Peninsula peace route of.”
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry stated in a assertion the quit diplomats furthermore agreed to push for a confer with to South Korea by Chinese President Xi Jinping as soon as the coronavirus pandemic is stabilized, and acknowledged the need for 3-arrangement cooperation with Japan while pushing for a trilateral summit between the international locations.
South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper speculated that China’s resolution to host Chung in Xiamen, a metropolis cessation to the self-dominated island of Taiwan, became intended to ship a message to Washington in opposition to attempting to shore up a U.S.-led “anti-China coalition.”
The Biden administration has stepped up efforts to bolster cooperation with allies South Korea and Japan, serious about China’s rising impression and the North Korean nuclear threat.
On Friday, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan hosted his South Korean and Japanese counterparts at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland for discussions on the international locations’ three-arrangement partnership and Washington’s policies on North Korea.
The US and China are at odds over a spread of points from alternate to human rights in Tibet, Hong Kong and China’s western Xinjiang plot, as well to over Taiwan, China’s assertiveness within the South China Sea and the coronavirus pandemic. China has furthermore been accused of lax enforcement of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear program.
The worsening relatives between Washington and Beijing have raised concerns in Seoul that it would change into squeezed between its predominant security ally and greatest alternate associate.
Earlier this week, Wang furthermore met his counterparts from four Southeast Asian international locations — Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
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Kim Tong-hyung reported from Seoul, South Korea.
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South Korean foreign minister meets Chinese counterpart
