Moon, Xi to hold summit next week

President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have a summit next week on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Danang, Vietnam, Cheong Wa Dae announced Tuesday.

This will be the first high-level meeting between South Korea and China in line with their agreement announced Tuesday to normalize their ties following a year-long standoff over the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here.

The foreign ministries of the two countries jointly announced a press release about the result of the bilateral accord aimed at “expeditiously bringing exchange and cooperation in all areas back to a normal development track.”

“The two sides have agreed to hold the summit as the first step to restore exchanges and cooperation as mentioned in the bilateral accord,” Cheong Wa Dae’s Second Deputy Director of National Security Nam Gwan-pyo told reporters.

Nam spearheaded talks with China, which were led by Assistant Minister of Foreign affairs Kong Xuanyou, to settle the THAAD row.

“The two delegates had a consensus that resolving the THAAD-related dispute will be a pre-condition to mend South Korea-China ties and they coordinated their views accordingly,” a senior presidential official said.

The agreement “seals” all issues related to THAAD and they will not be brought up when Moon and Xi meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit, Nov. 10 and 11, according to the official.

Cheong Wa Dae said it consulted with the U.S. prior to striking the deal with China.

Moon and Xi have only met once — in July on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany. Seoul made failed attempts to set up another meeting between the two leaders afterwards amid Beijing’s economic retaliation over the THAAD deployment.

Xi also refused to have phone calls with Moon despite North Korea’s sixth nuclear test and its launching of ballistic missiles.

“It appears that China has decided to shift away from retaliation as part of efforts to bolster ties with neighboring countries and help Xi to consolidate his power in his second five-year term,” a government official said on condition of anonymity.

“For the Moon administration, it was urgent to make a breakthrough because of the economic damage incurred by the THAAD row.”

In their agreement, both South Korea and China reiterated their long-held stance on THAAD, but still agreed to continue to discuss ways to resolve their differences and move forward.

Regarding North Korea, they reaffirmed the “peaceful principle” of pursuing denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis. They also agreed to use “all possible diplomatic methods” in dealing with Pyongyang’s nuclear threats in a consistent manner.

“The two sides attached great importance to the Korea-China relationship and decided to push for the further development of their strategic cooperative partnership,” the press release said.

“Both shared the view that strengthening exchanges and cooperation between Korea and China serves their common interests, and they agreed to expeditiously bring about exchanges.”

Some critics claimed that South Korea has “remained too low key” over China’s economic retaliation in their joint agreement.

Seoul has been assuring Beijing that THAAD is only aimed at deterring North Korea’s ballistic missile threats and will never target any third countries.

The press release showed that Seoul is aware of Beijing’s concerns over THAAD and that it will make clear it will not harm China’ s security interests.

China responded that it hopes South Korea “will handle the relevant issues in appropriate manner.” It also renewed its concern over Seoul possibly joining the U.S. missile defense system, the possible deployment of additional THAAD batteries here and trilateral military cooperation involving Japan.

“It appears that our government was too soft considering China did not show any regret over bullying South Korea,” said Shin In-kyun, president of the Korea Defense Network.

“On the other hand, China emphasized its policies against the U.S.-South Korea alliance.”

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea and center-left People’s Party welcomed the agreement.

But the two conservative opposition parties — the Liberty Korea Party and Bareun Party — criticized the agreement as “humiliating.”