By Kang Gahui and Kim Hwaya

President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Dec. 23 reaffirmed in a bilateral summit the desire of both sides to cooperate for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Arriving in Beijing for the talks before moving to Chengdu to attend Korea's eighth trilateral summit with China and Japan, President Moon said at the Great Hall of the People, "Recently, dialogue between North Korea and the United States has stalled, and tension has risen on the Korean Peninsula. This situation in no way benefits either of our countries – or North Korea."

"We highly appreciated China's important role for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and peace settlement," he said, adding, "I hope that we can work together even more closely so that the long-anticipated opportunity presented to us will finally come to fruition."

Xi said, "Both China and Korea are heavyweight countries in the world, beyond Asia," adding, "The two countries have common understandings in many ways in that both of us promote peace, stability and prosperity of the region as well as protect multilateralism and a free trade system."

"President Moon's visit will be an opportunity to improve the relationship of China and Korea and deepen trilateral cooperation including Japan."

On bilateral cooperation, President Moon said, "Since President Xi and I agreed to seek ways to cooperate in order to link up China's One Belt One Road initiative and Korea's New Southern and New Northern policies, a joint report containing concrete plans for collaboration has been recently adopted," adding that he expects synergy through joint entry into a third country.

The bilateral summit was the first between Korea and China since June, when both presidents held dialogue on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

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