Xi to satisfy Canadian, Japanese leaders after Trump commerce truce

China’s Xi Jinping will take centre stage at an annual gathering of Pacific Rim leaders in South Korea on Friday (October 31, 2025), holding talks with Canadian and Japanese counterparts after securing a fragile commerce truce with U.S. President Donald Trump.

That settlement, struck simply earlier than Mr. Trump left South Korea, skipping the primary two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, will droop additional curbs on China’s exports of uncommon earths that threatened to jam up world provide chains.

Bolstering provide chains is a key focus of this yr’s APEC talks, that are being hosted within the historic city of Gyeongju. The 21-member financial membership goals to encourage cooperation and scale back commerce and funding boundaries, although choices made at conferences are non-binding and consensus has been more and more troublesome.

Xi meets Japan’s new hawkish leaders

With the chief of the world’s greatest economic system absent, consideration turns to Mr. Xi, who is anticipated to carry his first talks with Japan’s newly elected chief Sanae Takaichi.

While relations between the historic rivals have been on a sounder footing lately, Ms. Takaichi’s shock elevation to change into Japan’s first feminine chief could pressure ties attributable to her nationalistic views and hawkish safety insurance policies.

One of her first acts since taking workplace final week was to speed up a navy build-up targeted on defending Japan’s islands from an more and more assertive China. Japan additionally hosts the largest focus of U.S. navy overseas.

The detention of Japanese nationals in China and Beijing’s import restrictions on Japanese beef, seafood and agricultural merchandise are additionally more likely to be among the many delicate points on the agenda.

Canada seeks to restart China engagement

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet Xi Jinping at 4:00 p.m. native time (0700 GMT), his workplace mentioned, aiming to restart broad engagement with China after years of poor relations.

Embroiled in a bitter commerce warfare with its greatest buying and selling accomplice, the United States, Canada is aiming to wean itself off that overwhelming dependence and search new markets. China is Canada’s second-biggest buying and selling accomplice.

Under the management of Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, Canadians have been detained and executed by the Chinese authorities, and Canada’s safety authorities concluded that China interfered in no less than two federal elections. Mr. Xi additionally publicly scolded Mr. Trudeau, alleging he leaked their discussions to the press.

China introduced preliminary anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola imports in August, a yr after Canada mentioned it might levy a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese electrical automobiles. Senior officers from either side met to debate these points earlier this month, however gave no indication of any looming breakthrough.

Bessent stands in for Trump

Deputising for Mr. Trump, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will take part within the opening session of the summit, the place South Korean Prime Minister Lee Jae Myung will host a dialogue on “restoring the will to cooperate in the Asia-Pacific region”.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun mentioned on Thursday that negotiations have been nonetheless going down on a joint assertion even for the ministerial assembly itself, however added that he was hopeful it might be adopted along with a leaders’ declaration when the summit concludes on Saturday.

“We are very close,” he instructed a briefing. Two APEC member nation diplomats privately expressed scepticism that any assertion can be significantly substantive, given fractures in world politics. APEC did not undertake a joint declaration in 2018 and 2019, throughout Trump’s first presidency.

Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang will likely be talking this afternoon to a gathering of executives working parallel to the APEC Summit.

Mr. Huang has had a whirlwind week, with Nvidia turning into the primary firm to surpass a $5 trillion valuation, however the difficulty of the U.S. chipmaker’s sale of superior AI chips in China was seemingly ignored of Thursday’s Xi-Trump summit.