China, South Korea look to improve ties with Beijing summit

leers of South Korea and China said Monday that y look forward to improved ties following a protracted disagreement over deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system that Beijing considers a threat.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Chinese leer Xi Jinping that while sides may have felt “disappointed toward each or for a while,” ir shared culture and history prevented m from becoming completely estranged.

“It is hoped that South Korea’s dream becomes helpful for China as China’s dream becomes an opportunity for South Korea,” Moon said in opening remarks before reporters were ushered from room.

In his opening comments at meeting at Great Hall of People in center of Beijing, Xi described bilateral ties as “a substantial relationship in world and an influential relationship among world nations.”

Ties between rast Asian neighbors sedived in 2017 after Seoul accepted placement of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THA, system in sourn South Korea. Beijing insists its real purpose is to use its powerful rars to peer deep into its territory, rar than to warn of rth Korean missile launches and shoot m down.

A furious China launched an ufficial boycott of everything from Chinese tour group visits to South Korea to South Korean television shows, boy bands and or cultural products. Major South Korean retailer Lotte, which provided a golf course where missile system was deployed, was singled out for especially harsh treatment and its China business operations were essentially destroyed. Even sales of ubiquitous South Korean auto brands such as Hyundai and Kia plunged for months.

Ultimately, Beijing was unable to force South Korea to remove system and its fury appears to have subsided somewhat amid its tre war with U.S. and tensions elsewhere in Asia. South Korea w hopes to have Xi visit next year and is also er to have Beijing use its influence with rth Korea to give a jolt to delocked denuclearization talks.

While South Korea appreciates part China has played in that effort, “current recent situations in which talks between United States and rth Korea are stalled and tensions on Korean Peninsula have become heightened are certainly t favorable, t only for South Korea and China but also for rth Korea,” Moon said in his opening comments.

“I hope that we continue to closely cooperate so that opportunities we have gained with difficulty can come to fruition,” he said.

rth Korea has set a year-end deline for U.S. to make concessions in nuclear talks, without apparently making any offers of its own. U.S. says it won’t accept that demand and has called on rth Korea to return to negotiations. While China is rth Korea’s most important diplomatic ally and chief source of investment and ecomic assistance, its ability to force Kim Jong Un’s regime to alter policy is believed to be limited.

Along with meeting Xi, Moon is to take part Tuesday in a trilateral summit in southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Xi met with Abe on Monday afteron in Beijing, saying two are “jointly opening a new future for relations between two countries.”

“At present Si-Japan relations are facing an important development opportunity,” Xi said.

Ties between longtime rivals have improved remarkably in recent years, despite lingering resentments over Japan’s invasion and occupation of much of China last century and its continuing control of East China Sea islands claimed by Beijing.

Japan is also wary about China’s rapid military expansion, and re has been a public uproar over detention of more than a dozen Japanese citizens on spying allegations in China. Chinese naval and coast guard ships routinely violate Japanese-claimed waters around disputed islands.