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China and South Korea's presidents meet

CHINESE President Xi Jinping will meet South Korean President Park Geun Hye in Seoul tomorrow for talks on a bilateral free trade agreement.

It will be Ms Park’s fifth meeting with her Chinese counterpart since she took office early last year.

Mr Xi’s decision to return last year’s visit to Beijing by Ms Park rather than drop in on traditional ally North Korea first is a departure from practise over the past two decades.

While Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang urged media not to “read too much” into this decision, it is no secret that Beijing has not taken kindly to Pyongyang’s recent flurry of missile tests and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

North Korea launched a further two short-range rockets off its east coast yesterday.

Bilateral trade between China and South Korea topped £128 billion last year, dwarfing the combined value of Seoul’s trade with the US and Japan.

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