ROK leader's visit to help boost bilateral ties

President of the Republic of Korea Lee Jae-myung will make a four-day state visit to China starting on Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday, noting that the visit is expected to play a positive role in advancing the two countries' strategic cooperative partnership.

It will be Lee's first visit to China since taking office in June 2025, and also the first visit to the country by an ROK president since 2019.

Speaking at a regular news briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said that China and the ROK are important neighbors and cooperation partners. "We hope that under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, this visit will play a positive role in advancing the China-ROK strategic cooperative partnership," he added.

Yonhap News Agency quoted a spokesperson of the ROK presidential office as saying that during the visit, the two sides will discuss cooperation plans in areas such as supply chains, investments, the digital economy, responses to transnational crime, and environmental protection.

A delegation of more than 200 ROK business leaders, including heads of Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group and LG Group, will accompany Lee on his visit to China, Yonhap reported.

According to the Foreign Ministry, the value of bilateral trade in 2024 reached $328.08 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.6 percent.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the bilateral free trade agreement, and the two sides have agreed to accelerate the second-phase negotiations for the FTA.

In November 2024, China implemented a visa-free policy for ROK citizens entering the country for tourism or business purposes, and the ROK reciprocated with a similar policy for Chinese group tourists in September 2025, triggering an increase in cross-border travel.

Lee's visit to China follows his meeting with President Xi Jinping in November in Gyeongju, South Korea, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Zhan Debin, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Studies at Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, said that Xi's visit to the ROK marked the stabilization of bilateral relations, while Lee's upcoming visit aims to explore ways to make further progress on the basis of that stability, especially by advancing economic and trade cooperation as well as people-to-people exchanges.

zhoujin@chinadaily.com.cn