New year, fresh start: South Korea’s Lee to visit China next week for talks with Xi to reset ties

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is scheduled to visit China from Sunday to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to deepen cooperation, Seoul and Beijing said, making a fresh start in the new year.

Lee and Xi recently met in November during the APEC Summit in the South Korean city of Gyeongju.  

Lee’s visit will be the first by a South Korean leader to China since 2019.

The South Korean leader will take part in a summit and a state dinner with Xi in the Chinese capital Beijing from Sunday to Tuesday, his office said.  

Lee will also discuss plans with Xi to reach concrete outcomes in areas such as supply chains and geopolitical issues in the region, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung told a briefing. China’s Foreign Ministry also confirmed the trip on Tuesday.

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Amid tensions between China and Taiwan, the meet will lead both nations to obtain mutual understanding. Lee will then head to economic powerhouse Shanghai for two days.

China is South Korea’s largest trading partner, and Seoul regards Beijing as a key force for stabilising supply chains, Lee has previously said.

The South Korean leader has sought a reset in relations with China after years of fraught ties under his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.

Seoul has for decades trodden a fine line between top trading partner China and the United States, its chief defence guarantor.

South Korea has maintained a technical tie with China, Beijing once hit back with sweeping economic retaliation, restricting South Korean businesses and banning group tours.

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Also clouding relations are Beijing’s close ties with North Korea, which remains technically at war with the South.

Pyongyang remains the “key issue” in relations, Lee Jae-mook, political science professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told AFP.

“On that front, there is still an expectation that China could help open a channel for dialogue with Pyongyang,” he said.

South Korean leaders have appeared to be neutral in political debates and views, fearing that touchy topics might anger Beijing.  

Asked this month whether he would side with Japan in an escalating row with China, Lee told journalists “taking sides only worsens tensions”.