Seoul envoy’s visit to China Paves way for key summit with Japan

Trilateral talks expected later in May as S. Korea begins repairing ties with Beijing

- Wendy Teo

SEOUL to host the first such trilateral summit in more than four years with China and Japan later in May, an important task at hand is to reconcile strained bilateral relations with Beijing.

As South Korea gears up While the administration under South Korean President Yoon Sukyeol has seen vastly improved ties with Japan in the last two years, ties with China have been decidedly frosty.

The deterioration in ties was clearly visible in 2023, as South Korea moved closer to the United States, its security ally. The US-Japan-South Korea summit held at Camp David in August 2023 which China slammed as a "hypocritical anti-China pantomime" further exacerbated the divide between South Korea and Japan on one side and China on the other.

Mr Yoon's past remarks about the Taiwan Strait being a "global issue", and the need to maintain the status quo, had also met with strong rebukes from Beijing.

To mend ties, South Korea dispatched Foreign Minister Cho Taeyul on a visit to Beijing on May 13 and 14, the first in more than six years by a South Korean foreign minister. The visit is seen as a step towards normalising relations, a move that the Chinese have welcomed.

In his opening remarks at the start of a four-hour meeting with Mr Cho, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed hope that bilateral relations with South Korea will develop further "without interference".