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Kim Hyun-chong, second deputy director of the National Security Office, meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Blue House in December 2019. (Yonhap News)

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is embarking on a trip aimed at maintaining stable relations with South Korea and Japan, two of the US’ main allies, before Joe Biden is inaugurated as the next US president. Even under the Biden administration, South Korea’s dilemma amid the US-China feud is only expected to worsen.

“Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will have a meeting and a luncheon with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Nov. 26,” Choi Young-sam, spokesperson for South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said during the regular briefing on Nov. 24.

“The two foreign ministers will be sharing their opinions about coordinating our response to COVID-19, high-level exchange and other aspects of bilateral relations, Korean Peninsula affairs, and mutual areas of interest in regional and international affairs. [The meeting] is expected to be an opportunity to explore various ways to develop our bilateral relations,” the spokesperson said.

Following a meeting and dinner with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on Tuesday afternoon in Tokyo, the first stop on his trip, Wang is planning to pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday before heading to South Korea.

While in South Korea, Wang will be meeting with Kang on Thursday and then meet with several members of the ruling party, including Moon Chung-in, special presidential advisor for unification, foreign affairs and national security, for breakfast on Friday.

On this tour, Wang appears likely to express serious concerns about expectations that Biden, once in office, will try to contain China through trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan. Wang toured five countries in Southeast Asia following a meeting on Oct. 6 of the Quad, or quadrilateral security dialogue; the foreign ministers of the US, Japan, Australia and India had convened to discuss the encirclement of China. On his tour, Wang criticized the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy as reflecting an outdated cold war mentality and accused the Quad of being an Indo-Pacific version of NATO.

Lately, the US-China conflict has been moving into the area of setting rules for trade in the Indo-Pacific region. This was illustrated by Biden’s remarks on Nov. 16, the day after the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes South Korea, China, and Japan. Biden pointedly said that the US needs “to be aligned with the other democracies [. . .] instead of having China and others dictate outcomes because they are the only game in town.”

That prompted Chinese President Xi Jinping to say during the video summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum on Nov. 21 that China is seriously thinking about joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The Trump administration exited the TPP negotiations in early 2017.

China has been warning South Korea against getting too close to the US and asking it to strengthen its strategic partnership with China.

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Politburo in charge of foreign affairs, proposed during a visit to South Korea in August that the two countries take their strategic partnership to the next level by strengthening high-level exchange and strategic communication and by actively linking their development strategies.

With Biden’s inauguration coming up, Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, is likely to voice such concerns more directly and explicitly.

Another pending question is whether Xi will pay a visit to South Korea this year, something that’s been under discussion for months now. It’s unclear whether the visit will take place given concerns about the diplomatic liability of welcoming in Xi just a month or two before Biden is inaugurated as US president. On top of that, South Korea is currently dealing with a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Motegi, the Japanese foreign minister, would only say he intends to “exchange candid opinions [with Wang] about regional and international affairs,” while declining to comment about whether Xi would be visiting Japan.

By Gil Yun-hyung and Kim Ji-eun, staff reporters

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