![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0023687b-614.jpg\"\/)
\nThe US and China reached a trade agreement earlier this week<\/p>\n
Chinese leader Xi Jinping met his South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung, after taking centre stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure.<\/p>\n
The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Mr Xi’s first trip to South Korea in over a decade, and a day after his meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Mr Xi, with the two agreeing to dial down a dispute that has roiled markets and disrupted global supply chains.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump’s departure left the Chinese leader to take centre stage at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he has framed China as a counterweight to a US-led international order.<\/p>\n
\nThe US and China reached a trade agreement earlier this week<\/p>\n
Speaking at the summit’s closing ceremony, Mr Xi said next year’s APEC meeting would take place in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.<\/p>\n
Leaders also agreed to deepen cooperation on artificial intelligence as well as issues like low birth rates, population aging and urbanisation.<\/p>\n
The Chinese leader has used the summit to rekindle old ties with nations frozen by Beijing for years.<\/p>\n
Mr Xi yesterday met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the event – the first formal talks between the two countries’ leaders since 2017.<\/p>\n
He told the Liberal leader he was determined to work together to get relations back on the “right track” and invited Mr Carney to visit China.<\/p>\n
Mr Xi also sat down with Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi for the first time since she was appointed in October.<\/p>\n
She said she told Mr Xi that she wanted a “strategic and mutually beneficial relationship between Japan and China”.<\/p>\n
![\"Japan's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0023687a-614.jpg\"\/)
\nSanae Takaichi said she raised a number of issues with the Chinese leader<\/p>\n
But she told reporters that she also raised a number of thorny issues with the Chinese leader, saying that it was “important for us to engage in direct, candid dialogue”.<\/p>\n
The Chinese leader then turned his attention to the South Korean president in what will be their first sit-down meeting since Mr Lee’s election in June.<\/p>\n
Mr Lee welcomed Xi at a grand opening ceremony complete, footage shared by South Korean broadcaster Yonhap TV showed.<\/p>\n
South Korea has long trodden a fine line between top trading partner China and defence guarantor the United States.<\/p>\n
Relations with China soured in 2016 after South Korea agreed to deploy the US-made THAAD missile defence system.<\/p>\n
China hit back with sweeping economic retaliation, restricting South Korean businesses and banning group tours.<\/p>\n
Cultural spats – including China’s claims over the origins of the Korean staple dish Kimchi – have also soured public opinion against China.<\/p>\n
South Korea – which this week also agreed a multibillion dollar economic deal with the United States – remains heavily dependent on trade with its vast Asian neighbour.<\/p>\n
Mr Lee will likely try to “reassure Beijing that South Korea’s alignment with the United States does not preclude pragmatic economic engagement with China,” Seong-Hyon Lee, a scholar at the Harvard University Asia Centre.<\/p>\n
The South Korean leader is keen to “seek a measure of economic stability and a more predictable floor in bilateral relations,” he said.<\/p>\n
Also hanging over relations are Beijing’s close ties with North Korea, which remains technically at war with the South.<\/p>\n
Mr Lee plans to raise the issue of “denuclearisation” with the Chinese leader, as well as broader peace efforts on the peninsula, Seoul’s presidential office said.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Mr Lee and Mr Xi’s meeting, North Korea dismissed South Korea’s hopes for denuclearisation as a “pipedream” which “can never be realised even if it talks about it a thousand times”.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters ahead of his meeting with Mr Xi, Mr Lee said China had a key role to play “in achieving peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.<\/p>\n
“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,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese leader Xi Jinping met his South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung, after taking centre stage at an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-115639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}