S.Korean FM to visit China; talks on trilateral leaders’ meeting expected to top agenda

As South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul is set to visit China from Monday to Tuesday, Chinese observers said that negotiating arrangements for a long-stalled trilateral leaders’ meeting among China, Japan and South Korea will be a top priority. Cho’s trip is being closely watched as observers wonder whether this visit will address current obstacles and pave the way for a fresh start in relations between China and South Korea.

Cho will visit China from Monday to Tuesday at the invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian announced on Friday.

During the visit, Cho will meet with Wang to exchange views on issues of mutual interests including Korea-China relations, the KoreaJapan-China trilateral leaders meeting, Korean Peninsula issues, and regional and global affairs, according to a press release from South Korea’s foreign ministry on Friday.

South Korea, the current rotating chair of the trilateral dialogue, is eager to realize the trilateral meeting, which is also a top priority of Cho’s trip, said Lü Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences.

The meeting has long been stalled due to COVID-19 pandemic, a soured relationship among the three countries and US disruption that has created obstacles for the three countries to cooperate, Lü argued.

Chinese experts noted the widening divergences between Beijing and Seoul on the diplomatic front, caused mainly because of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s leaning toward the US and malicious statements about the island of Taiwan, South China Sea and other China-related issues. They view such divergences as unavoidable differences between two sides.

“Cho’s trip, the first trip to Beijing by a South Korean top diplomat in more than six years, is set to cover the current obstacles facing the two countries and explore ways to solve the pressing problems,” Lü said.

The Yoon administration is mired in a severe quagmire after South Korea’s liberal opposition party won a landslide victory in the country’s parliamentary elections in April.

“Under such circumstances, we will wait and see whether Yoon is going to reassess the onesided and erroneous foreign policy and economic policies toward the US in the past two years. This is also what China hopes to know,” Lü said.