Did South Korea ‘pop champagne too early’ for US-China balancing act at Apec?

South Korea’s bid to reboot ties with China and deepen trade links while strengthening its military alliance with the United States has stirred warnings of renewed pressure from both powers, with last week’s Apec summit underscoring the fragility of Seoul’s balancing act.

President Lee Jae-myung’s meetings with his Chinese and American counterparts, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, have been hailed as diplomatic wins.

However, analysts say Seoul could pay a steep price for trying to hedge between two rivals locked in strategic competition, with both South Korea’s export-driven economy and its long-term security posture at stake.

“I am afraid South Korea popped the champagne too early,” Choo Jae-woo, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Kyung Hee University, told This Week in Asia.

Seoul hailed the first summit in 11 years between Lee and Xi as a milestone in mending ties.

“It helped fully restore our bilateral relations and put us back on the path of mutual prosperity as strategic cooperative partners,” Lee said in a Facebook post on Sunday.