Wang Yi Visits South Korea; Remembering Zhu Rongji; US-China Ahead of Xi’s Visit; How China Monitors Foreigners

**Andrew Sharp** (0:04)
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Sharp China. I'm Andrew Sharp, and on the other line, Bill Bishop. Bill, it's great to see you. How you doing?

**Bill Bishop** (0:15)
I'm doing well, Andrew. It's good to see you. It's good to be back. It's been what, three weeks, I think? So it's-

**Andrew Sharp** (0:19)
Three weeks. The Bay Die hub break is over. The party is back to work.

**Bill Bishop** (0:24)
We're back to work.

**Andrew Sharp** (0:26)
It's great to be back on the podcast.

**Bill Bishop** (0:28)
Yes, it is. Hi, everybody.

**Andrew Sharp** (0:30)
We have a lot to catch up on on this podcast, including news that has been percolating all week long in Korea, so that's where we're going to begin. I'll read from the Korea Herald. The Korea Herald on Tuesday reported, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit South Korea this week for discussion centered on Seoul's renewed push for dialogue on the Korean Peninsula and the broader direction of South Korea-China relations. Wang will make a two-day visit beginning Wednesday at the invitation of Foreign Minister Cho Hyun.
So Bill, that meeting has now happened. We have statements from the meeting. Was this trip telegraphed in advance at all? Because the timing is obviously notable in the shadow of Trump's Sunday night reduction of joint military exercises between the US and South Korea that were planned for this week. So what do you think of the timing?

**Bill Bishop** (1:26)
You know, it certainly is coincidental. And I think even if it is just a coincidence, it's in some ways to Beijing's benefit.
I really don't know. I think these kinds of trips, it would be pretty shocking if the Chinese side and the Korean side would put this together in basically 24 hours after a post from President Trump. But it is interesting. And we still don't really know. I mean, President Trump also apparently, I think the Wall Street Journal had a story that he really wants to have a meeting with North Korea's Kim this fall. He keeps trying to go back to what he was trying to do in the first term, which was create some sort of breakthrough deal with North Korea.
So is something bigger going on in the background? Very unclear what's going on right now. I think the South Korean government is a bit more leaning towards China than the predecessor, the one who I think is now in jail for attempting a coup and attempting to destroy democracy. So I don't think it's not, on the one hand, South Korea doesn't want to be hung out to dry by the US, but I don't think that's really what's going on. On the other hand, I think in some ways that if there's more space for talks with North Korea, that's something that the South Korean leadership probably welcomes. That's certainly something that China welcomes. China has had more diplomacy with North Korea this year. Xi Jinping was in Pyongyang earlier. Wang Huni from the standing committee would then follow up. They went on a subsequent visit. The Chinese are, I think, they're trying to really re-strengthen ties with Pyongyang.

**Andrew Sharp** (3:00)
Yeah, we talked about that a month or two back, where they're not necessarily fighting the nuclear issue the way they had in the past, and there's increased trade with North Korea as well. So that relationship, what I'm curious about is like the South Korea PRC relationship. You mentioned that the South Korean government, the sitting South Korean government is friendlier to Beijing than past South Korean governments.
What does that relationship look like as a general matter? Like, how has that changed over the last year or two here?

**Bill Bishop** (3:36)
I mean, it's again, I think the changes are, you know, not it's not like a sudden shift. It's just more, you know, I think there's more of a desire for more talks with the North and trying to figure, you know, I think that the, you know, they're trying to renew dialogue. The whole denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula issue is, you know, North Korea is a nuclear power. They're not going to give them up, right? That is a dead, that anyone, you know, continuing to push for North Kim has to, you know, get rid of his nukes. It's not going to happen. I mean, he's got the lesson of Gaddafi in Libya. He's got the lesson of Iran. I mean, they're just, North Korea is a nuclear power.

**Andrew Sharp** (4:14)
And even China, they haven't explicitly accepted that. But again, the rhetoric around the issue has quieted.

**Bill Bishop** (4:20)
They now have pushed it to the hope at some point they can denuclearize. Because they're, you know, one of their biggest concerns, right, is that the South Korea decide, well, we need nukes too. And, you know, you're seeing that the talk in Japan, the increasing talk in Japan about getting nuclear weapons is driving Beijing absolutely insane.