South Korea hosts Xi as Chinese leader rekindles fraught ties

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung (right) and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands ahead of the South Korea-China summit held at the Gyeongju National Museum in Gyeongbuk Province on November 1, 2025. — Yonhap via AFP pic

GYEONGJU, Nov 1 — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung hosted Xi Jinping for their first meeting today as the Chinese head of state took centre stage and reforged old ties at an Asian summit from which US leader Donald Trump was largely absent.

The talks on the sidelines of the Apec gathering came on the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade and a day after his meeting with Canada’s premier reset damaged ties.

Trump flew to South Korea for the summit but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, the pair agreeing to dial down a dispute that has roiled markets and disrupted global supply chains.

His departure left the Chinese leader to take centre stage at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he framed Beijing as a responsible power against the chaos unleashed by the United States on the international order.

Lee welcomed Xi at a grand opening ceremony complete with soldiers wearing traditional garb.

The visit was the Chinese leader’s first since 2014 and comes after years of strained ties over everything from trade to cultural disputes.

Lee told Xi he had “long looked forward to meeting you in person” and framed his trip as a reset in relations.

“As our two countries move from a vertical structure of economic cooperation to a more horizontal and mutually beneficial one, we must work together to build a relationship that delivers shared prosperity,” Lee told Xi, whose vast economy represents South Korea’s largest trading partner.

Xi, in turn, described China and South Korea as “important neighbours that cannot be moved and also partners that cannot be separated”.

He told Lee that the two countries should “respect each other’s societal differences and development paths... (and) resolve contradictions and disagreements through friendly consultation”, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Rekindle ties 

Lee also pitched China as a partner in his country’s efforts to rekindle frayed ties with North Korea, with which it remains technically at war.

Stressing the need for “stability” in the region, Lee noted “recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea”—a reference to leader Kim Jong Un’s recent attendance at a major military parade in Beijing.

Those meetings, Lee said, “are helping to create conditions for renewed engagement with Pyongyang”.

“I hope that South Korea and China will strengthen strategic communication... and work together to resume dialogue with the North,” Lee told Xi.

Ahead of their meeting, Pyongyang had dismissed Seoul’s hopes for denuclearisation as a “pipedream” which “can never be realized even if it talks about it a thousand times”.

Passing the baton 

Lee earlier passed the Apec baton to Xi, who will host next year’s summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

With the US president absent, Xi has used Apec to reach out to countries with which Beijing has had frosty relations.

He met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the event on Friday, the first formal talks between the two countries’ leaders since 2017.

Xi told the Liberal leader he was determined to work together to get relations back on the “right track” and invited Carney to visit China.

Carney described the meeting as a “turning point” in ties between Ottawa and Beijing.

Canada’s relations with China are among the worst of any Western nation.

However, they could find common ground because they are both at the sharp end of Trump’s tariff onslaught, even after Xi and the US leader’s deal on Thursday to dial back tensions.

Carney said on Saturday he had apologised to Trump over an anti-tariff ad featuring former US leader Ronald Reagan that sent the president into a rage, leading him to cancel trade talks and slap additional 10 percent tariffs on Canada.

Trade talks would restart when the United States was “ready”, Carney said.

And, he said, he had accepted Xi’s invitation to visit “in the new year”.

Xi also sat down on Friday with Japan’s premier Sanae Takaichi for the first time since she was appointed in October.

Takaichi, Japan’s first woman prime minister, has long been seen as a China hawk and has been a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine that honours Japan’s war dead, a site that angers China and South Korea.

She told Xi that she wanted a “strategic and mutually beneficial relationship”. — AFP