Why Chinese foreign minister’s trip to South Korea ‘dealt a low blow’ to Seoul

Despite both sides claiming relations had ‘fully recovered’, Seoul did not win Beijing’s support for its latest peace initiative

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, concluded his visit to South Korea on Friday, but declined to back Seoul’s push for multiparty peace talks involving the North.

North Korea, however, responded with more than 10 short-range ballistic missile launches on Thursday, prompting the South’s presidential office to convene an emergency security meeting.

During the visit, both sides said bilateral ties had “fully recovered” after years of strain, citing recent exchanges between their leaders and renewed cooperation on trade, technology and people-to-people exchanges.

But Wang, who visited the country last year with Xi and was making his first solo trip in five years, delivered a pointed message to President Lee Jae Myung and other senior officials.

He urged them to pursue “genuine strategic autonomy”, avoid “bloc confrontation or taking sides”, and develop relations with Beijing and Washington “in a mutually compatible manner”, according to the foreign ministry in Beijing.