SEOUL– The ruling People Power Party (PPP) leader met with Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming on Friday and asked for Beijing’s active role in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula amid a recent series of North Korean missile launches.
“Peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula fits China’s national interest as well,” PPP leader Chung Jin-suk told the envoy during their meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul. “North Korea’s military provocations are surpassing the critical point.”
Xing said China is also concerned about the escalating tensions and called for talks to defuse them.
“The Korean Peninsula is connected to China. We also hope for peace on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.
North Korea has been ramping up its military threats recently, firing 81 ballistic missiles on 34 occasions in violation of an inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement signed in September 2018, as well as U.N. Security Council resolutions.
On Thursday, Pyongyang fired an intercontinental ballistic missile and two short-range missiles toward the East Sea, just a day after it launched a barrage of missiles, including one that flew across its de facto maritime border with the South for the first time since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Chung and Xing also discussed bolstering ties between Seoul and Beijing as close neighbors.
Chung told Xing the two countries should improve economic cooperation, noting China has been South Korea’s No. 1 trade partner over the past 20 years.
Xing said China will open up its economy more, providing more opportunities to neighboring countries, including South Korea.
Before the meeting, Chung and Xing offered condolences for the deaths of at least 156 people, including four Chinese nationals, in a deadly crowd crush that happened in Seoul’s nightlife district of Itaewon Saturday night.
Source: Yonhap News Agency