PPP lawmaker urges China to recall Amb. Xing

China should immediately recall its Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming for making disrespectful remarks to the host nation so as to put an end to tensions between the two countries, a ruling party lawmaker said Wednesday.

Rep. Cho Kyoung-tae of the People Power Party (PPP) made the remark during a radio interview, a day after the office of President Yoon Suk Yeol said it is waiting for China to take an unspecified “appropriate measure” over the incident.

“This case should be brought to an end by immediately recalling Amb. Xing,” Cho said.

The Chinese envoy sparked a furor by saying during a meeting with opposition leader Lee Jae-myung last week that “those who bet” on China’s defeat in its rivalry with the United States “will definitely regret it.”

The PPP has since lashed out at the envoy, some even calling for designating him as a “persona non grata.”

“The issue is so serious, I can’t even think of another example of an ambassador who did something like this in a host country,” Kim Jae-won, a member of the PPP’s Supreme Council also said in a radio interview. “An ambassador shouldn’t be the one messing up (relations),” he said.

Some PPP lawmakers cautioned against the idea of expelling the ambassador, saying it could hurt South Korea’s relationships with one of its biggest trade partners.

“We should not go as far as expulsion,” Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun said in a separate radio interview. “We should hold talks and dispatch an envoy behind the scenes to turn things about. That is what diplomacy is for.”