South Korean President Lee Jae-myung arrived in China yesterday, eager to boost economic ties with Seoul’s largest trading partner while keeping a lid on potentially explosive issues such as Taiwan.
Lee is the first South Korean leader to visit Beijing in six years, and his four-day trip comes less than a week after China carried out massive military drills around Taiwan.
The exercise, featuring missiles, fighter jets, navy ships and coast guard vessels, drew a chorus of international condemnation that Seoul has notably declined to join.
Photo: EPA
Lee, accompanied by a delegation of business and tech leaders, hopes to expand economic cooperation in meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and other top officials.
He hopes to possibly harness China’s clout over North Korea to support his bid to improve ties with Pyongyang.
Hours before Lee departed for Beijing, Seoul’s military said the North had fired a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan — its first test of the year.
Seoul has for decades trodden a fine line between China, its top trading partner, and the US, its chief defense guarantor.
Kang Jun-young, a professor at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said Beijing was seeking to draw South Korea away from Washington’s sphere of influence.
“China views South Korea as the weakest link at a time when trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan is strengthening,” he said.
Lee has deftly stayed on the sidelines since a nasty spat erupted between Beijing and Tokyo late last year, triggered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s suggestion that Japan could intervene militarily if China attacks Taiwan.
“Taking sides only worsens tensions,” he told journalists last month.
Lee has long dodged questions about whether Seoul would intervene in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, which Beijing has not ruled out using force to seize.
Lee in an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Friday said that he “clearly affirms” that “respecting the ‘one-China’ principle and maintaining peace and stability in Northeast Asia, including in the Taiwan Strait, are very important.”
A summit with Xi is planned for today, followed by trade talks with top officials including Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) tomorrow, according to top South Korean adviser Wi Sung-lac.
Xi and Lee last met in November last year on the sidelines of a regional summit in Gyeongju, South Korea — a meeting Seoul framed at the time as a reset following years of tense relations.
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