South Korea should neither fear nor underestimate China’s rise, its foreign minister says

What did Cho Hyun actually say in Beijing?

South Korea should neither fear China’s rise nor underestimate its capabilities, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said on Saturday 14 November, urging deeper cooperation ahead of a regional summit in China next week. “During this visit to China, I was reminded that we should neither have an unfounded fear of China’s rise nor underestimate its capabilities and potential,” Cho wrote on X, saying Seoul should build cooperation benefiting both countries by drawing on the autonomy and creativity of its people and companies.

The remarks came a day after talks and dinner with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Friday, their first meeting in about three months, following Wang’s visit to Seoul in August. The meeting took place at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse and lasted about 90 minutes before dinner.

The timing is the point. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit opens in Shenzhen on 18–19 November, and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will attend. A meeting between Lee and Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected on the sidelines, the first in ten months, and Lee is also scheduled to join a dinner hosted by Xi and his wife, Seoul has said.

What did the two ministers put on the table?

The agenda was the relationship itself. The ministers discussed bilateral ties, peninsula issues and ways to deliver tangible benefits to people in both countries, and agreed to strengthen the foundation for mutually beneficial economic cooperation; concretely, progress on a bilateral free trade agreement covering services and investment, and expanded people-to-people exchanges.

The peninsula dominated the substance. Cho told Wang that peace and stability on the peninsula serve the shared interests of South Korea and China, and called on Beijing to play a constructive role in resolving peninsula issues, including bringing North Korea back to dialogue. Wang said China’s policy on the peninsula remains unchanged and reaffirmed Beijing’s commitment to keep playing a constructive role in promoting peace and stability.

On economics, Wang said China wanted to expand cooperation in traditional industries and emerging sectors, including artificial intelligence and biomedicine. Cho said Seoul would use Lee’s visit to advance ties and expand “horizontal and mutually beneficial” cooperation where the two countries have complementary strengths. He expects human exchanges to exceed 10 million this year, with trade up more than 40 per cent.

Beijing also briefed Seoul on its dealings with Pyongyang, describing Kim Jong-un’s trip to Dandong on 24 October and saying China’s ties with North Korea centre on economic cooperation rather than politics. The talks also touched on Wang’s meeting with Kim Song-nam, a senior North Korean party official who visited Beijing last week. No new agreements were announced.

What is still unconfirmed after Friday’s talks?

First, the leaders’ meeting itself. A Lee–Xi meeting in Shenzhen is expected and prepared for, but neither capital has published a formal confirmation, and the agenda for it is still being coordinated. Until the announcement lands, the centrepiece of the week remains a plan, not a fact.

Second, the great-power choreography around APEC. There is speculation that the leaders of China, Russia and the United States could meet in Shenzhen, and that a United States–North Korea summit may also be possible. Cho told reporters such a meeting remains possible and that China was willing to mediate, but also said it seemed unlikely China would invite Kim Jong-un to the APEC meeting. None of it is confirmed.

Third, the hard files. Cho conveyed South Korea’s position on Chinese steel structures installed in the Provisional Measures Zone of the Yellow Sea, where the two countries’ exclusive economic zones overlap; but what, if anything, was agreed about them has not been disclosed. The same holds for the substance of the FTA talks and for what a Chinese “constructive role” on North Korea would involve beyond words.

Why does a foreign minister’s post matter this much?

Because it is the public language of a relationship being rebuilt in the open. South Korea hosted last year’s APEC meeting; China hosts this year’s. Wang said visits by the two heads of state since late last year had helped put bilateral relations back on a positive track, and with the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations approaching in 2027, both sides are calling the moment a chance to advance their strategic cooperative partnership.

For Seoul, the stakes are structural. China is South Korea’s largest trading partner and the largest market for its semiconductors and intermediate goods, while the United States is its security ally. Cho’s formula, neither fear nor underestimate, is the public version of that balancing act: engage Beijing’s economy and its weight on the peninsula without conceding the alliance, and without pretending the friction has gone away.

For the peninsula, the meeting tests whether Beijing will use its leverage at all. Seoul asked China to help bring Pyongyang back to dialogue and to cooperate on preventing war and building a peace regime; Beijing said it would work to bring North Korea to the table. If that produces movement, it changes the region’s diplomacy; if only words, the inter-Korean freeze continues, and the APEC week will be remembered for economics, not peace.

What does the 5D lens show behind the warm words?

Through the geopolitical lens, this is summit choreography. APEC rotates its host, and the host sets the table: South Korea held the gavel last year, China holds it this year, and the ministers’ meeting is the advance team making sure the leaders’ encounter has something to announce. Speculation about a Trump–Xi–Putin encounter in the same city is part of the same geometry; Shenzhen as the room where the great powers test whether they can still meet.

Through the economic lens, the logic is complementarity. Cho spoke of “horizontal and mutually beneficial” cooperation in areas of complementary strength, and Wang named artificial intelligence and biomedicine alongside traditional industries; the language of two economies that still need each other, Korean chips and technology against Chinese scale and market, negotiating terms neither side can replace quickly.

Through the demographic and technological lenses, the numbers do quiet work: more than 10 million people moving between the two countries this year, and trade up by more than 40 per cent. Through the historical lens, the restoration has a date; 2027 marks 35 years of diplomatic relations, and the relationship has spent much of the last decade repairing the chill that followed the 2016 THAAD deployment dispute. Friday’s meeting is one more step in that repair.

What changes if Shenzhen delivers; and what if it does not?

First, the trade track. If the Lee–Xi meeting gives political cover to the FTA negotiations on services and investment, the economic relationship gains a framework it has lacked, and the AI and biomedicine cooperation Wang named becomes a programme rather than a phrase. If the summit produces only ceremony, the talks continue at working level and the restoration stays rhetorical.

Second, the peninsula track. A Chinese commitment to bring Pyongyang to the table only matters if Pyongyang answers. Kim Jong-un’s October trip to Dandong and the party-level contacts suggest Beijing is keeping its channel warm; whether that channel carries a message to Washington is the open question of the week, and the answer will shape Seoul’s diplomacy for months.

Third, the spoiler track. The Yellow Sea structures, China’s Taiwan drills and the wider United States–China contest all sit just outside Friday’s talks. Any of them can intrude on the Shenzhen week and change its meaning overnight. The warm words are real, but they were spoken inside a region where the friction has not gone away.

What should readers watch in Shenzhen next week?

The first signal is the confirmation. Watch for a formal announcement of the Lee–Xi meeting and its agenda; pairing it with the dinner hosted by Xi and his wife would show how much ceremony Beijing is prepared to invest. A joint statement’s language on the FTA and the peninsula will show how far the restoration is meant to go.

The second signal is the guest list. Whether Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping meet together in Shenzhen; a possibility the Bureau covered here; and whether any United States–North Korea contact materialises will define the summit far beyond the Korea–China bilateral. Cho has said a Washington–Pyongyang meeting remains possible; the week will test that judgement.

The third signal is the follow-through. People-to-people exchanges, the FTA services talks and the Yellow Sea file will each produce their own next datum in the weeks after Shenzhen. The Bureau’s coverage of China’s recent military signalling around Taiwan, here, and of the Busan trade understandings between Washington and Beijing, here, is the background against which those signals should be read. South Korea’s deepening nuclear cooperation with Türkiye, here, shows Seoul widening its partnerships at the same time.