On Sunday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye returned from a four-day visit to China that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said heralded a new chapter in bilateral relations.
While the trip led to a number of minor economic agreements between South Korea and China, the most important outcome was that it allowed Park and Chinese President Xi Jinping to develop their relationship.
“The main accomplishment is it really offered South Korea an opportunity to forge political and strategic relationships with China without feeling that there were elements of betrayal or contradiction with the U.S.-Korea alliance, and so there’s a foundation now on which South Korea can build,” Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the U.S.-Korea policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Trend Lines.