National Assembly Speaker Jo meets Chinese ambassador, urges Beijing's constructive role on Korean Peninsula

National Assembly Speaker Jo Jeong-sik met Thursday with Dai Bing, China's ambassador to South Korea, at the Speaker's office to exchange views on developing South Korea-China relations and expanding exchanges and cooperation between the two countries' legislatures.

Opening the meeting, Jo welcomed the ambassador by noting that Monday had marked the 34th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. "I am very pleased to meet with you today," he said. "South Korea and China must continue to build on the spirit of the 1992 normalization of relations."

Jo said the strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries was being fully restored and advanced on the strength of the state visits exchanged by President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping. "Following Foreign Minister Wang Yi's recent visit to South Korea, I expect the friendly relationship between the two countries to be further consolidated through a summit at the APEC meeting in Shenzhen, China, in November," he added.

Jo stressed that parliamentary exchanges must provide a firm foundation alongside government-to-government ties for the bilateral relationship to advance further. "I hope to meet with Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, in the near future for a candid conversation about developing relations between the two countries and strengthening legislative exchanges," he said. He added that he would actively support a planned visit to South Korea next month by Ding Zhongli, vice chairman of the NPC, as well as a joint meeting under the South Korea-China parliamentary regular exchange framework.

Jo said peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula was an important challenge the two countries must work through together. "The South Korean government is working to create conditions for dialogue with North Korea while pursuing peaceful coexistence and shared prosperity between the two Koreas," he said. "We look forward to China playing a constructive role in easing tensions and resuming dialogue on the Korean Peninsula."

Jo also said that for the bilateral relationship to develop in a stable manner, friendly sentiment between the two peoples must continue to grow. "I hope cultural and people-to-people exchanges become more active," he said, urging China's attention and cooperation on issues of concern to the South Korean government and National Assembly — including the preservation of sites related to the anti-Japanese independence movement and efforts to recover the remains of independence activist Ahn Jung-geun.

Ambassador Dai said he was confident that the South Korean National Assembly and China's National People's Congress would maintain an even stronger cooperative relationship going forward. "Having met and exchanged views with Speaker Jo on several occasions before his inauguration, I offer my sincere congratulations on his taking office," Dai said.

The ambassador said the two countries' leaders had reached important common ground on developing bilateral relations through their mutual state visits, one element of which was invigorating exchanges between the two legislatures. "We must work to advance the South Korea-China strategic cooperative partnership to a new stage," he said. "China maintains its position of safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and will continue to play a constructive role going forward."