North Korea: elephant in the room when Xi met Lee in Beijing

President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands after the state banquet held at a hotel in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, Nov. 1, 2025. Courtesy of the presidential office

The leaders of South Korea and China wrapped up a summit this week with both underlining support for one of Beijing's diplomatic priorities but making no tangible progress on North Korea, Seoul's main concern.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday for a high-stakes summit held just over nine weeks after their first meeting.

During the trip, Lee declared 2026 as the year for the "full restoration of South Korea-China relations" and Xi vowed to facilitate "more frequent exchanges and closer communication".

The two countries also finalized more than 10 cooperation agreements spanning areas such as industrial exchanges, digital technology, intellectual property and environmental collaboration.

According to Beijing, South Korea said it respected China's core interests and major concerns and remained committed to the one-China policy, with Lee referring directly to the 1992 joint communique that formalized diplomatic ties between the two nations.

The communique states that Seoul respects Beijing's position that there is only one China, with Taiwan as a part of it.

But there was no mention by China of North Korea's nuclear program or efforts to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons, suggesting lingering differences between Beijing and Seoul on security issues.

A South Korean official said both leaders acknowledged "the importance of resuming dialogue with North Korea."

Two days after the summit, Lee said he had asked China to act as a "mediator for peace" on the Korean peninsula, including on the nuclear issue, and was told by Xi that "patience is needed".

Some experts said the absence of a joint statement after the meeting - even after two back-to-back summits - showed a deep mismatch over expectations between the two sides.

"Seoul expects Beijing to play a more active role in persuading Pyongyang to engage in inter-Korean dialogue, while Beijing expects Seoul to adopt a more independent stance in criticizing U.S. hegemonic behaviour," said Cho Sung-min, an associate professor in the department of political science at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul.

"Although these expectations were clearly not met, both sides may nevertheless be satisfied with having expressed their respective views, as they place greater emphasis on restoring and stabilising bilateral relations."

Cho said Beijing's influence over Pyongyang was not waning and might grow if the Ukraine war ended and North Korea's ties with Russia weakened.

Jang Soo-jin, a South Korea-based analyst with the geopolitical risk consultancy NorthStar Insights, said China was looking at the Korean peninsula within a broader regional context.

Jang said the U.S. was a higher priority for China than developments on the Korean peninsula and its ties with North Korea.

"As the North Korean nuclear problem becomes more advanced, there are limits to South Korea relying excessively on China's role alone, and it raises the need to seek more realistic approaches to denuclearization through the resumption of multilayered dialogues," she said.

At the same time, experts said the modest outcome of the summit was understandable given the long hiatus in high-level exchanges.

"Despite the structural constraints of U.S.-China competition, room was created for [China and South Korea] to advance bilateral relations in practical areas of cooperation such as culture and the economy," Jang said.

With Lee set to visit Japan and hold talks with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Tokyo remains an unspoken but important factor in Beijing-Seoul relations.

China and Japan have been at odds since November when Takaichi said a conflict in the Taiwan Strait might be a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, suggesting that it would justify a military deployment.

The row shows no sign of abating, with China on Tuesday banning the export of products with both commercial and military applications to end users linked to the Japanese military.

Jang said China would be watching closely to see whether the Lee-Takaichi talks would cover Taiwan and Beijing's tensions with Tokyo.

"From China's perspective, a potential concern is that President Lee's visit to Japan could be interpreted as a move towards strengthening trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan, or as a tilt towards a framework aimed at containing China," she said.

She added that Seoul was more likely to focus on managing relations in parallel rather than leaning towards or excluding any of the surrounding major powers.

Cho agreed, saying: "Lee is unlikely to go beyond reaffirming South Korea's long-standing position that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are important to the country because this position does not imply any concrete actions that South Korea would take in the event of a Taiwan contingency."

Lee has avoided any mention of Taiwan contingencies or broader regional security alignments, choosing instead to focus on the importance of regional peace and stability.

In terms of cultural exchanges, Seoul said Xi and Lee agreed to expand exchanges in football and the strategy game Go, and to hold working-level consultations related to films and television dramas.

Jang said the focus on less sensitive areas indicated "an understanding that South Korea and China intend to manage the restoration of their relationship cautiously rather than pursue it rapidly in the short term".

To ease anti-China sentiment in South Korea, Lee has suggested Beijing donate giant pandas to Gwangju's Uchi Zoo.

South Korea already has four of the animals and ministerial-level talks are under way to expand that cooperation.

Read the article at SCMP.