South Korean President Moon Jae-in seeks to reconcile with Beijing after tensions flared over THAAD
China is the South’s top trading partner and the diplomatic row took a major toll on many South Korean firms, most notably retail giant Lotte Group
South Korean President Moon Jae-in hopes to “normalise” ties with giant neighbour China on his first state visit to the country this week, his office said on Monday, after Beijing was infuriated by a US missile system deployment.
Seoul and Washington decided to install the powerful US THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) system in the South earlier this year to guard against threats from the nuclear-armed North.
Beijing saw it as a threat to its own security and reacted furiously, slapping a string of measures against South Korean businesses and banning group tours to the South, in moves seen as economic retaliation.
China is the South’s top trading partner and the diplomatic row took a major toll on many South Korean firms, most notably retail giant Lotte Group, which provided the land to host the powerful US missile system.
Angry boycott campaigns and regulatory crackdowns by Chinese authorities decimated its business in the world’s second-largest economy, and it was forced to put its supermarket unit in China up for sale.
But last month the two countries issued identically worded statements on their mutual desire to improve relations.
