At the South Korea-China summit, Seoul and Beijing signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) across a range of areas—including the economy, climate, and technology—demonstrating their willingness to cooperate and laying the groundwork for restoring bilateral relations and building a cooperative framework following the November 2025 summit. However, the two sides failed to make any progress or reach agreements on key diplomatic and security issues such as North Korea’s denuclearization, Chinese structures in the West Sea, and the so-called “Korean Wave ban” (Hallyu ban). This outcome revealed that South Korea and China remain at an impasse on these outstanding issues.

As U.S.–China competition intensifies and the international environment grows increasingly unstable, it is difficult to expect China to play a substantive role in advancing North Korea’s denuclearization, peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, or the improvement of inter-Korean dialogue. If South Korea hastily pursues the restoration of relations with China based on expectations of such a role, Beijing’s demands aimed at constraining the ROK-U.S. alliance and ROK-U.S.–Japan security cooperation are likely to grow stronger, potentially undermining both frameworks. In such a scenario, amid an unstable international environment, security on the Korean Peninsula and South Korea’s national interests could be compromised.

This article is an English Summary of Asan Issue Brief (2026-03).

(‘한중 정상회담(2026.1.5)에서 나타난 중국의 의도와 대응 방안’)