China's Xi Arrives in Seoul for Talks with Park | WPN World People News

Chinese President Xi Jinping has begun a two-day state visit to South Korea, a trip seen by many as a snub to Beijing's historical ally, North Korea.

Xi's talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye are expected to be dominated by concerns over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

In the past week, the North has fired several short-range rockets off its east coast, in what some view as a sign Pyongyang is unhappy with Xi's visit.

His trip marks the first time a Chinese president has visited South Korea before North Korea. It is the fifth time Park and Xi have met since they took office.

Xi has not yet met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who took power in 2011.

The visit is also expected to focus on boosting economic ties between Seoul and Beijing, important trading partners that have been negotiating a free trade deal since 2012.

Ahead of the trip, China's Communist Party-run Global Times hailed South Korea as being an "exemplar of good neighbor relations." The editorial said ties have been "particularly thriving" amid what it called an "intricate and complex" situation in Northeast Asia.

South Korea, along with its allies in Washington, have been pushing China to apply more pressure on North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In recent years, Beijing has gone along with expanded U.N. sanctions against the North. But it has been reluctant to publicly make any statements that would upset Pyongyang, instead calling for the whole Korean peninsula to be denuclearized.

Source: Voice of America