China's Xi Jinping will take centre stage at an annual gathering of Pacific Rim leaders in South Korea on Friday, expected to hold talks with Canadian, Japanese and Thai counterparts after securing a fragile trade truce with U.S. President Donald Trump, Reuters reported.

That agreement, struck just before Trump left South Korea, skipping the main two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, will suspend further curbs on China's exports of rare earths that threatened to jam up global supply chains.

Bolstering supply chains is a key focus of this year's APEC talks, hosted in the historic town of Gyeongju. The 21-member economic club aims to encourage cooperation and reduce trade and investment barriers, though decisions made at meetings are non-binding and consensus has been increasingly difficult, according to Reuters.