Chinese senior officials’ South Korea trip to coincide with Putin’s Pyongyang visit

Sun Weidong and Zhang Baoqun will be in Seoul for ‘2+2’ dialogue on Tuesday; Kremlin says Vladimir Putin to visit Pyongyang the same day

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Foreign vice-minister Sun Weidong is one of two senior Beijing officials set to lead a delegation to Seoul for diplomatic and security talks on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 9:00pm, 17 Jun 2024Updated: 2:32am, 18 Jun 2024

A trip to South Korea by senior Chinese foreign and defence officials will coincide with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang next door, as tensions soar in the Korean peninsula.

Foreign vice-minister Sun Weidong and Zhang Baoqun, deputy director of the Chinese military’s international cooperation office, will be in Seoul on Tuesday to take part in the “2+2” diplomatic and security dialogue, Beijing’s foreign ministry has confirmed.

South Korean foreign vice-minister Kim Hong-kyun and defence officials will take part in the meeting, a statement from Seoul’s foreign ministry said.

A rough schedule for the coming dialogue was confirmed when Chinese Premier Li Qiang met South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in Seoul last month. Set up in 2002, the dialogue has been organised five times so far. It was upgraded to vice-ministerial level in 2020, when the Beijing-friendly Moon Jae-in was president of South Korea.

“The establishment of the 2+2 dialogue mechanism between China and the Republic of Korea … is in view of the needs of the development of bilateral relations,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in Beijing on Monday, referring to the official name for South Korea

“China will focus on exchanging views with South Korea on how to develop and improve [relations and] deepen exchanges and cooperation in various fields,” he added.