GYEONGJU, South Korea (Reuters) -South Korean President Lee Jae Myung sought Chinese President Xi Jinping’s help in efforts to resume talks with nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea on Saturday, while Xi told Lee he was willing to widen cooperation and jointly tackle the challenges they face. Lee hosted Xi at a state summit and dinner after […]
World
South Korean president Lee asks China’s Xi for help engaging North Korea
Audio By Carbonatix
GYEONGJU, South Korea (Reuters) -South Korean President Lee Jae Myung sought Chinese President Xi Jinping’s help in efforts to resume talks with nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea on Saturday, while Xi told Lee he was willing to widen cooperation and jointly tackle the challenges they face.
Lee hosted Xi at a state summit and dinner after an Asia-Pacific leaders’ forum in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, marking Xi’s first visit to the U.S. ally in 11 years.
Beijing attaches great importance to relations with Seoul and sees South Korea as an inseparable cooperative partner, Xi said ahead of the summit according to Lee’s office.
Lee, who was elected president in a snap election in June, has promised to strengthen ties with the United States while not antagonising China and seeking to reduce tensions 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”.
North Korea has repeatedly and explicitly rejected Lee’s overtures, saying it will never talk to the South. In recent years Pyongyang abandoned its longstanding policy of unification with the South and called Seoul a main enemy.
Leader Kim Jong Un said he would be willing to talk to the United States if Washington drops demands for denuclearisation, but he did not publicly respond when U.S. President Donald Trump offered talks during his visit to South Korea earlier this week.
Trump and Lee announced a surprise breakthrough in talks to lower U.S. tariffs in return for billions of dollars in investment from South Korea. The U.S. president then departed before the main APEC leaders’ summit.
Chinese state media reports on the meeting with Lee made no mention of the North Korea discussions.
According to Xinhua, Xi proposed ways to open a new chapter in relations, including having each country “respect each other’s social systems and development paths, accommodate core interests and major concerns, and properly handle differences through friendly consultation.”
Xi also called for upholding multilateralism and increasing cooperation in areas such as artificial intelligence, biopharmaceuticals, green industries and aging populations, Xinhua reported.
During Xi’s visit, China and South Korea signed seven agreements including a won-yuan currency swap and memorandums of understanding on online crime, businesses that cater to aging populations, and innovation, among other issues.
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONCERNS
South Korea is a military ally and major trading partner with the United States, but is also heavily reliant on trade with China.
Hundreds of protesters joined an anti-China rally in Seoul on Saturday as Xi and Lee met.
Protesters carried placards saying “South Korea belongs to South Korea” and “China Out”, while chanting “Chinese and Communism, get out of South Korea” as they marched through the vibrant shopping street in the Hongdae area.
Kim Hye Kyung, a 64-year-old conservative protester, said she joined the rally to “protect liberal democracy” in her country.
Amid a rise in such protests, in October Lee ordered a crackdown on anti-Chinese and anti-foreigner rallies that he said were harming the country’s image and economy.
South Korea has voiced concerns about the impact of China’s rare earth export controls and called for the removal of Chinese sanctions on five U.S.-linked units of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean. Beijing said the sanctions were related to security risks stemming from the company’s cooperation with U.S. investigations.
Seoul is also hoping that Xi’s visit may lead to Beijing relaxing years-long restrictions on South Korean entertainment content, effectively banned after the 2017 deployment of the U.S.-led Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system in South Korea.
South Korea has also expressed concerns over structures placed in disputed waters between the countries, which China claims are for fishing purposes.
On the sidelines of an ASEAN defence summit in Malaysia on Saturday, South Korea’s defence minister met his Chinese counterpart and raised the issue of Chinese military activity in Korea’s Air Identification Zone (KADIZ).
(Reporting by Ju-min Park, Jihoon Lee, Eduardo Baptista, Sebin Choi, Joyce Lee, Josh Smith; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Hugh Lawson)