Newly nominated foreign minister pledges to improve ties with China

Foreign Minister nominee Cho Tae-yul vowed to work on improving ties with China on...

Foreign Minister nominee Cho Tae-yul speaks with the press in Seoul on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Foreign Minister nominee Cho Tae-yul vowed to work on improving ties with China on Wednesday.

“Our relations with China are as important as our alliance with the United States,” he told a group of reporters in his office building in Seoul. “Beijing is aware of the possible effects its rivalry with Washington has on Seoul. Such understandings should help us find grounds to advance our relations.”

Cho, nominated by President Yoon Suk Yeol to replace Foreign Minister Park Jin, is a career diplomat of 40 years, an expert in trade negotiations and multilateral engagements, having served as ambassador to the UN between 2016 and 2019.

Cho told reporters that if Korea's relations with its regional partners could be placed on a pendulum, with the United States and Japan on one side and China on the other, “the pendulum might have swung too much” to the United States and Japan when the Yoon government took office.

But he defended the Yoon government for doing so, adding that the former administration had been “somewhat careless” in its relations with Washington and Tokyo.

On the current administration’s plan to host a trilateral leaders’ summit with Japan and China in the early half of next year, Cho said he would “put in the effort to ensure it is held as early as possible.”

Alluding to North Korea's growing coalition with Russia and China, Cho said the current geopolitical situation does not bode well for the South.

“Intensifying confrontation that pits South Korea, the United States and Japan on one side against North Korea, China and Russia on the other is never good for South Korea,” he said.

On relations with Japan, Cho said he would continue to “find harmonious ways” to work with Tokyo, especially regarding ongoing legal cases involving Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor.

“It’s a very difficult issue,” he said. “We will continue to engage Japan based on the solution proposed by the Yoon government while also considering the victims’ grievances.”

Earlier this year, the Yoon government proposed a Korea-funded compensation plan for the victims and their relatives, many of whom were engaged in lawsuits against Japanese companies.

Some have since taken up the proposal and received compensation from donations from Korean companies that benefited from Japanese loans and aid when Korea and Japan normalized ties in 1965.

Japan maintains that the compensation issue was settled in the 1965 normalization treaty, which saw Japan give Korea $300 million in economic aid and $500 million in loans.

There are still ongoing cases in the court, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to issue a verdict on one of them on Thursday.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]