North Korea鈥檚 nuclear issue on agenda for Xi鈥檚 Seoul visit
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CHINESE President Xi Jinping will visit South Korea next week, the two countries announced yesterday, with North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons due to feature prominently in talks.
It will be Xi’s first visit to South Korea as president but his fifth summit with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House said North Korea would be high on the agenda when the two leaders discuss regional security and cooperation.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said both countries were important cooperative partners and had achieved great success together.
“China and South Korea have many common areas of interest,” Qin told a daily news briefing, though he declined to provide details of Xi’s agenda.
Xi will not be visiting North Korea, which has relied on China as its economic lifeline through steadily toughening UN sanctions imposed for its nuclear arms program.
Trade in the impoverished country stood at an all-time high last year since records were first kept in 1990 and the Bank of Korea estimates that China absorbed nearly 90 percent of all North Korean trade.
Qin said that, as a close neighbor of the Korean Peninsula, China takes an objective and fair stance, committed to peace and stability.
China supports improvements in south-north relations and has maintained friendly and cooperative ties with both sides, Qin said.
“China is willing to work with South Korea and North Korea to advance China’s relations with the two countries” Qin said. “It is in the interests of the three countries and contributes to regional peace, stability and prosperity.”
Xi and Park will likely focus on forging a stronger economic partnership. Despite the relatively short diplomatic ties reached 22 years ago, the two countries have developed into one of the world’s biggest trade partnerships, with two-way trade at nearly US$230 billion.
China is South Korea’s biggest trading partner. South Korea is also one of the few developed countries that runs a surplus with China, one in excess of US$60 billion.
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