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South Korean President Moon Jae-in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the telephone in the Blue House on May 4.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 4 to share the outcome of the Apr. 27 inter-Korean summit, concluding his “telephone diplomacy” efforts with the leaders of the US, China, Japan and Russia.

President Moon previously had a 75-minute telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump on Apr. 28, the day after the inter-Korean summit at Panmunjeom. On Apr. 29, he spoke by telephone with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking for their support and cooperation regarding the Panmunjeom Declaration he had agreed upon with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

A notable feature of President Moon’s conversation with Xi was the two leaders’ agreement to beef up cooperation not only for the success of a North Korea-US summit expected to take place in May but also for the future after the meeting. Presuming the North Korea-US summit is successful, the two also agreed to remain in “close communication” and to “maintain and strengthen communication” toward a declaration of the Korean War’s end and signing of a peace agreement as the South and North Korean leaders agreed in their Panmunjeom Declaration.

Some observers speculated that the telephone conversation with Xi may have been delayed over Beijing’s annoyance with the declaration’s wording about “trilateral meetings involving the two Koreas and the United States, or quadrilateral meetings involving the two Koreas, the United States and China” toward the establishment of a peace regime. Those concerns are expected to be alleviated somewhat following the two leaders’ emphasis on cooperation in their May 4 conversation.

Speaking about the “35-minute conversation” between President Moon and Xi, a key Blue House official said, “There was no need for the conversation to go on for very long because there was almost nothing the two leaders disagreed about.”

“The mood was pleasant enough that President Moon commented on how reassuring it was that the hotline with President Xi seemed to be up and running,” the official added.

The two leaders also agreed that the upcoming summit between Trump and Kim will need to be a success for the South and North Korean leaders’ agreed-upon goal of “realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” to get on track.

Reporting on a May 3 meeting between Kim and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Xi stressed that the “success of the North Korea-US summit is key for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” President Moon also asked for Xi’s “support during the process of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of permanent peace, including the North Korea-US summit.”

Immediately after his conversation with President Moon, Xi discussed North Korean issues in a telephone conversation with Abe. Following that conversation, Abe told reporters at his official residence in Tokyo that he and Xi “agreed it was laudable” that the Panmunjeom Declaration following the Apr. 27 inter-Korean summit referred to “complete denuclearization.”

“I expressed my respect to President Xi for the pressure China has exerted toward resolving the North Korean nuclear and missile issues,” Abe added.

“President Xi and I also agreed that it is extremely important to implement UN Security Council resolutions [regarding sanctioning North Korea],” he continued. It was the first telephone conversation between the two leaders.

By Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporter, and Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]