At the meeting between Park and Li at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, the countries reached an agreement to work toward ratifying by the end of the year a bilateral free trade agreement that has yet to gain approval from South Korean lawmakers, Park's office said.
The sides, two of the region's closest economic partners, also agreed to work toward expanding South Korean food exports to China and strengthening industrial cooperation in areas such as robotics.
An official from the Blue House couldn't immediately confirm whether the issue came up during today's meeting. About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from rival North Korea.
Tomorrow's trilateral summit will be the first since 2012. The meetings were shelved after Japan's ties with its two neighbours deteriorated over disputes stemming from its World War II-era aggression and territorial claims.
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Japan and China have been gradually resuming exchanges following 2012 tensions over the control of disputed islands in the East China Sea. The rift began healing after diplomats agreed to restart contacts last November, when Chinese President Xi Jinping briefly met and shook hands with Abe.
Park has met with Xi six times since she took office in 2013, in efforts to further strengthen ties with Beijing. China is South Korea's largest trade partner, and also has leverage with North Korea, Seoul's hard-to-read, nuclear-armed rival.
The US wants Japan and South Korea, important allies in the region, to be on better terms to counter China's growing geopolitical influence, including in the South China Sea, and also to strengthen security cooperation against North Korea.
Earlier in the week, the US Navy sailed a warship close to one of China's artificial islands in the South China Sea.