Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung on Saturday (Nov 1), concluding a landmark diplomatic week that underscored Beijing’s growing influence in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt departure from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The meeting, held on the sidelines of the APEC gathering in Seoul, marked Xi’s first visit to South Korea in more than a decade, signaling a renewed Chinese diplomatic outreach toward regional powers once estranged from Beijing.
The talks followed Xi’s meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday—a reset after years of diplomatic freeze—and his dialogue with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, marking an extraordinary round of regional engagement by the Chinese leader.
President Trump’s sudden return to Washington on Thursday, after reaching a provisional trade truce with Xi, left the Chinese leader dominant on the APEC stage. The truce—seen as a temporary pause in the ongoing U.S.-China trade confrontation—helped ease market anxieties and hinted at a possible recalibration in global trade politics.
With Trump gone, Xi’s speeches and meetings dominated the summit’s final two days. At the closing ceremony on Saturday, Xi announced that next year’s APEC summit would be hosted in Shenzhen, China’s southern technology hub, symbolically reinforcing Beijing’s ambition to position itself as both an innovation leader and a regional convenor.
“Asia’s future lies in cooperation, not confrontation,” Xi said, calling for deeper collaboration on artificial intelligence, aging populations, and urbanisation—issues that increasingly transcend national borders.
Diplomats at the summit noted that the mood shifted palpably after Trump’s exit. “It felt like Beijing was the gravitational center of the discussions,” said one senior Southeast Asian official. “Xi used the moment to present China as a stabilising alternative to American unpredictability.”
Xi’s high-level engagements during the summit marked what analysts described as a “charm offensive” aimed at resetting China’s strained relations with key U.S. allies and trade partners.
His meeting with Canada’s Mark Carney was the first formal leader-level dialogue between the two nations since 2017, following years of tension over the detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian politics. Xi told Carney that he wanted to “put relations back on the right track” and extended an invitation for the Canadian leader to visit China—a gesture viewed as an olive branch.
On Friday, Xi also held a long-awaited meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who was appointed in October. While the two leaders emphasized the importance of a “strategic and mutually beneficial relationship,” Takaichi did not shy away from addressing contentious issues, reportedly raising concerns about maritime incursions and Beijing’s assertive behavior in the East China Sea.
“It was important for us to engage in direct, candid dialogue,” Takaichi told reporters after the meeting, signalling Tokyo’s intent to balance engagement with firmness.
The highlight of Xi’s visit came Saturday afternoon, when he sat down with President Lee Jae Myung at the Blue House, marking their first in-person meeting since Lee’s election in June.
In a ceremony broadcast by South Korea’s Yonhap TV, Xi was greeted with a military guard of honor dressed in traditional Korean attire, a symbolic gesture of respect that underscored the historic nature of the visit.
South Korea has long sought to balance its economic interdependence with China and security alliance with the United States—a dual-track diplomacy often complicated by tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The two leaders discussed ways to “strengthen economic cooperation and ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia,” according to a statement from Seoul’s presidential office. Xi, for his part, praised South Korea’s “independent foreign policy and constructive regional role,” pledging to “expand mutual trust and practical cooperation.”
The meeting took place against the backdrop of lingering bitterness from the 2016 THAAD missile defense dispute, when Seoul’s decision to deploy the U.S.-made system triggered harsh economic retaliation from Beijing. China restricted South Korean businesses, banned group tours, and curtailed cultural exchanges—a campaign that cost the South Korean economy billions and eroded public goodwill.
Even today, anti-China sentiment remains widespread in South Korea, fueled by cultural controversies such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi and disputes over historical narratives.
“South Korea remains economically tied to China but emotionally estranged,” said Dr. Seong-Hyon Lee, a scholar at Harvard’s Asia Center. “President Lee Jae Myung’s challenge is to reassure Beijing that alignment with Washington doesn’t exclude pragmatic engagement with China.”
The South Korean president, analysts say, hopes to carve out a more balanced approach—anchored in economic stability while maintaining strategic trust with the United States. Earlier this week, Seoul signed a multi-billion-dollar economic agreement with Washington, underscoring its commitment to the U.S.-Korea alliance even as it courts Beijing for economic predictability.
Another sensitive issue hovering over Saturday’s meeting was North Korea’s nuclear program. Beijing remains Pyongyang’s primary ally and economic lifeline, even as the Kim regime continues to defy international sanctions and expand its missile arsenal.
Lee’s office confirmed that the president intended to raise the issue of “complete denuclearisation” and the need for renewed peace initiatives on the Korean Peninsula.
“China has a unique influence on North Korea,” Lee told reporters before the meeting. “A stable peninsula is essential for stability in Northeast Asia, and that in turn aligns with China’s own interests. We expect China to play a significant role in this regard.”
Beijing, however, has grown increasingly resistant to U.S.-backed sanctions pressure, advocating instead for a “phased and reciprocal” approach that links Pyongyang’s denuclearisation steps to security guarantees and economic relief.
North Korea, for its part, dismissed Seoul’s denuclearisation goals as a “pipedream” earlier in the week, asserting that the South’s overtures were “an illusion that can never be realised even if repeated a thousand times.”
Still, both sides agreed on the importance of avoiding escalation. Xi reportedly reaffirmed China’s opposition to “chaos or conflict” on the peninsula and called for “dialogue and patience” as the only viable path forward.
Despite political tensions, China remains South Korea’s largest trading partner, accounting for roughly a quarter of its exports. South Korean tech giants such as Samsung and SK Hynix rely heavily on Chinese supply chains, even as both nations compete in semiconductor and electric vehicle markets.
Xi and Lee discussed establishing a “China-Korea Economic Cooperation Committee” to explore new trade frameworks, particularly in high-tech manufacturing, green energy, and AI governance. The two leaders also pledged to boost people-to-people exchanges, a subtle nod to repairing the cultural and tourism rift that has persisted since 2017.
However, regional observers caution that strategic competition between Beijing and Washington will continue to constrain Seoul’s diplomatic flexibility. “South Korea cannot afford to alienate either side,” said Choi Kang, vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “What we are seeing is Seoul’s attempt to build an equilibrium—one that ensures national security while preserving economic opportunity.”
Xi’s presence at the APEC summit—and his flurry of bilateral meetings—appeared to cement China’s intent to reassert leadership in Asia at a time of American unpredictability. By engaging with U.S. allies such as Japan, Canada, and South Korea in a single diplomatic sweep, Beijing is signaling both confidence and strategic patience.
“Xi is executing a long game,” said an ASEAN diplomat familiar with the summit discussions. “He knows the U.S. political scene is volatile, and he’s positioning China as the constant—predictable, powerful, and indispensable.”
For South Korea, Xi’s visit represents both an opportunity and a test: an opportunity to stabilise a vital economic partnership, and a test of how far Seoul can stretch its diplomatic balancing act without undermining its U.S. security commitments.
As the summit drew to a close, one image captured the shifting dynamics of Asia’s strategic landscape: President Lee and President Xi walking side by side under Seoul’s autumn skies—two leaders navigating between cooperation and competition, in a region increasingly defined by both.
