'Seoul, Beijing begin journey of trust'

President Park Geun-hye laughs during a conversation with members of Super Junior and Girls’ Generation at Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium in Beijing where the K-pop stars threw a Korea-China music concert, Friday. / Yonhap

Park makes part of speech in Mandarin at Tsinghua Univ.

By Kim Tae-gyu

BEIJING ― President Park Geun-hye delivered a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing, the alma mater of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Saturday. Her opening remarks were in Mandarin.

In her 20-minute speech before students and faculty members of the university, she called for the two countries to build relations of "trust."

Park studied Mandarin by herself and has developed great proficiency.

"South Korea and China have developed friendship and cooperation at an unprecedented pace during the last 20 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992," Park said.

She said Korea-China relations should now move into a more mature and substantial partnership.

“Beyond the successful Korea-China relations over the past 20 years, I intend to begin a journey of trust to open up new 20 years."

She said a joint communique the two sides adopted at the summit is a "blueprint and roadmap" for her efforts.

As per the communique adopted at the summit, the two sides pledged to bolster cooperation, especially political and security relations, including opening a top-level security dialogue channel.

On North Korea, Park and Xi agreed in the joint communique that the communist nation's nuclear program poses a serious threat to peace in the region and beyond and pledged to work closely together to bring about a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula.

During the university speech, Park outlined her vision for peace with the North.

She said she wants to bring “genuine peace” to the Korean Peninsula.

"What is more important than anything else is to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. North Korea should listen to the united voice from the international community that its nuclear program is unacceptable," she said.

Park said she is ready to help North Korea revive its broken economy if it gives up its nuclear program.

She also stressed that a peaceful Korean Peninsula would also be of help to the prosperity in Chinese provinces bordering with North Korea.

"A Northeast Asia without geopolitical risks stemming from the issue of North Korea would serve as a 'growth engine' for the world through the combination of a rich labor force and the world's best capital and technologies" in the region, she said.