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President Park to attend G20 summit in China

Posted August. 19, 2016 07:16,   

Updated August. 19, 2016 07:29

한국어

President Park Geun-hye will visit China next month to attend the G20 summit. Attention is drawn to whether she will hold talks with her Chinese and U.S. counterparts amid escalating frictions between Seoul and Beijing over the planned deployment of the terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) system in South Korea.

Park’s office Cheong Wa Dae said Thursday that the president will attend the 11th G20 summit to be held in Hangzhou, China on Sept. 4-5. She will also participate in forums with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the East Asia Summit in Vientiane, Laos and hold a summit with her Laotian counterpart on Sept. 7-9.

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The greatest attention is drawn to whether the South Korean president will hold a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Officials from Seoul and Beijing will likely discuss the issue at the South Korea-China-Japan foreign ministers’ talks to be held in Japan next week.

President Park's trip to China will follow her visit to Russia, where she will hold a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 2-3. If a Park-Xi summit takes place, she will have an opportunity to improve Seoul’s ties with Beijing and Moscow and seek ways to strengthen international cooperation in sanctioning North Korea for its nuclear development. Even if a Park-Xi summit is held, however, the bilateral ties could get frozen further unless they narrow differences over the THAAD issue.



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