China ready to work with South Korea for regional peace, stability

ANKARA (AA) – Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that his country is ready to collaborate with South Korea to promote regional peace and stability.

These comments were made during a meeting he had with his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

"China is ready to work with the ROK to uphold, consolidate and further develop the bilateral relationship and to provide greater stability for the region and the world," Xi was quoted as saying in an official statement issued in Beijing by China's Foreign Ministry.

Earlier in the day, South Korean media reported that Yoon would discuss the latest tensions on the Korean Peninsula and urge President Xi to use his leverage to prevent North Korea from escalating further.

However, the Chinese side's statement did not go into detail about what Yoon said, only that the two leaders discussed North Korea's recent missile launches.

China and South Korea, Xi said, are inseparable partners in cooperation and close neighbors who will always live close to one another.

"The two countries shoulder important responsibilities in maintaining peace of the region and promoting prosperity of the world, and they also have broad converging interests," the Chinese president said, adding that the two countries need to increase strategic communication and political mutual trust.

The leaders of the two countries meet after nearly three years. Both countries' top leaders last met in December 2019, when former South Korean President Moon Jae-in paid a visit to Xi in Beijing.

Xi said Beijing and Seoul need to improve their development strategy alignment and collaborate for common development and prosperity.

"China is ready to work with the ROK to promote cultural exchanges and cooperation, scale up communication and coordination at the G20 and other fora, jointly practice true multilateralism and safeguard overall peace and stability in the region," he said.

"The two sides need to accelerate negotiations on a bilateral Free Trade Agreement, deepen cooperation in such areas as high-tech manufacturing, big data and green economy, jointly uphold the international free trade system, keep the global industrial and supply chains secure, stable and unclogged, and oppose politicizing economic cooperation or overstretching the concept of security on such cooperation," he added.

President Yoon also expressed his willingness to use the 30th anniversary of South Korea-China relations to develop a mature relationship based on mutual respect and mutual benefit, which is in the best interests of both countries, according to the statement.

"The ROK hopes to maintain interactions with China on various levels, step up people-to-people exchanges, enhance friendship between the two peoples, uphold the free trade system and jointly tackle global challenges," he said.