GYEONGJU: China’s Xi Jinping will take centre stage at an annual gathering of Pacific Rim leaders in South Korea on Friday (Oct 31), holding talks with Canadian, Japanese and Thai counterparts after securing a fragile trade truce with US President Donald Trump.
That agreement, struck just before Trump left South Korea, skipping the main two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, will suspend further curbs on China’s exports of rare earths that threatened to jam up global supply chains.
Bolstering supply chains is a key focus of this year’s APEC talks, hosted in the historic town of Gyeongju. The 21-member economic club aims to encourage cooperation and reduce trade and investment barriers, though decisions made at meetings are non-binding and consensus has been increasingly difficult.
“As the free trade order undergoes dramatic changes, global economic uncertainty is deepening and trade and investment are losing momentum,” South Korean President Lee Jae Myung told the gathered leaders at the opening session on Friday.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood in for the absent Trump.
XI MEETS JAPAN’S NEW HAWKISH LEADER
With the leader of the world’s biggest economy absent, attention turns to Xi, who is expected to hold his first talks with Japan’s newly elected leader Sanae Takaichi.
While relations between the historic rivals have been on a sounder footing in recent years, Takaichi’s surprise elevation to become Japan’s first female leader may strain ties due to her nationalistic views and hawkish security policies.
One of her first acts since taking office last week was to accelerate a military build-up aimed at deterring the territorial ambitions of an increasingly assertive China in East Asia. Japan also hosts the biggest concentration of US military abroad.
The detention of Japanese nationals in China and Beijing’s import restrictions on Japanese beef, seafood and agricultural products are also likely to be among sensitive issues on the agenda.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-xi-jinping-meet-canada-japan-leaders-after-trump-trade-truce-apec-summit-5436881
