China's Top Diplomat Wang Yi Likely to Visit South Korea Next Week

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi is expected to travel to Seoul next week for a two-day visit that would mark the highest-level diplomatic exchange between the two countries since President Lee Jae Myung's state visit to Beijing in January, according to South Korean government sources.

Sources familiar with the matter said Seoul and Beijing are in the final stages of arranging the trip, tentatively set for Aug. 19-20. If confirmed, it would be Wang's first visit to South Korea for bilateral foreign ministerial talks since September 2021, and the first by a senior Chinese foreign policy figure since Lee's summit with President Xi Jinping earlier this year.

During the visit, Wang is expected to hold talks with Foreign Minister Cho Hyun covering North Korea's nuclear ambitions, the broader security situation on the Korean Peninsula, and Taiwan. Officials are also weighing a courtesy call on President Lee and a separate meeting with Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, while both governments plan to review progress on economic, cultural and people-to-people initiatives agreed at January's summit.

South Korean officials view the timing of the trip as significant. Wang traveled to Pyongyang in April, and Xi followed with his own visit to North Korea in June, a flurry of engagement that some in Seoul worried signaled a tilt in Beijing's attention toward Kim Jong-un's government. "China has maintained a kind of balanced diplomacy between North and South Korea," one South Korean official said on condition of anonymity, adding that Wang's visit could be an attempt to restore that balance.

A central point of interest for Seoul will be whether China reaffirms its commitment to North Korea's denuclearization, a term that was conspicuously missing from statements following the Xi-Kim summit in June. South Korean officials are expected to press Wang on the issue and urge Beijing to help bring Pyongyang back to dialogue, though Wang is more likely to favor general language about peace and stability rather than an explicit denuclearization pledge.

Taiwan and the "one China" principle are also expected to come up, particularly after South Korea, the United States and Japan recently issued a joint statement underscoring the importance of stability across the Taiwan Strait. Maritime disputes in the Yellow Sea — including Chinese structures inside a provisional measures zone, unresolved boundary lines and illegal fishing by Chinese vessels — could also feature prominently in the talks, alongside discussion of Lee's potential attendance at the APEC summit in Shenzhen this November.

Coming just weeks ahead of an anticipated summit between the United States and China in late September, the visit may also offer both sides a chance to trade views on wider global flashpoints, including the fallout from the US-Iran conflict and tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.