South Korea and China agree on security dialogue, trade talks

Chinese Premier Li Qiang and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol agreed to start a dialogue on diplomatic and security issues at a meeting in Seoul on Sunday, Yoon's office said.

The security dialogue will start in mid-June with the involvement of the foreign and defence ministries. Both sides also agreed to resume talks to extend and upgrade a free trade agreement between China and South Korea that went into effect in 2015.

Further, a bilateral investment cooperation committee, which has been dormant since 2011, is to be revived. Li was in South Korea for the first time since taking office in March of last year.

Yoon and Li reached the agreements before their three-way summit on Monday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Japan's prime minister travelled from Tokyo and also held one-on-one talks with Yoon and Li on Sunday.

The situation in East Asia and beyond has changed dramatically in the years since the last tripartite meeting at the end of 2019, Kishida told The Japan Times newspaper before his departure for Seoul.

The summit aims to improve trilateral cooperation with the economy, trade and climate change on the agenda.

Such three-way meetings were originally due to be held annually but the pandemic, coupled with tensions between South Korea and Japan, derailed plans. Relations have since improved between the two nations, both close allies of the US.

Both are linked to China through close trade ties while also sharing Washington's concerns about Beijing's expanding reach.

South Korean media reported that Yoon told Li that China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, must play a "role as a bastion of peace."

He also reportedly asked Li for Beijing to use its influence over North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with regards to the regime's nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

The programmes are perceived as a direct threat by the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan.