Wang Yi Visits Seoul as Trump Pushes to Revive North Korea Talks
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- Wang Yi arrived in Seoul on Aug 19 for talks and a dinner with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, and is scheduled to meet President Lee Jae Myung on Aug 20 along with National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac.
- Trump ordered the scale-back of US-South Korea joint military exercises, citing his relationship with Kim Jong Un and signaling willingness to meet the North Korean leader again, with China — Pyongyang's only formal treaty ally — responding only by reiterating its long-standing position on peninsula peace.
- China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Aug 19 that maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula is in the common interests of all parties, without directly commenting on Trump's intervention to cut short the US-South Korean drills.
- South Korea's Foreign Ministry is pursuing a summit between President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the 2026 APEC summit in Shenzhen, according to Cho's remarks in Parliament.
- President Lee proposed multilateral talks involving parties to the 1950-53 Korean War to establish lasting peace on the peninsula, and is expected to attend the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November.
- Talks between Wang and Cho are expected to cover bilateral ties, Korean Peninsula issues, including recent developments around the military exercises, and broader regional affairs.
Why it matters: By traveling to Seoul as Trump scales back joint drills and courts Kim Jong Un unilaterally, Beijing positions itself as a necessary diplomatic channel on the peninsula. South Korea is hedging by pursuing its own direct Lee-Xi summit at the 2026 APEC gathering in Shenzhen, reducing the chance that a US-North Korea deal proceeds without Seoul's input.
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