Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday called on South Korean President Lee Jae-myung to help “ensure regional stability,” as Beijing pressures Tokyo over its stance on Taiwan.
The two leaders met in Takaichi’s picturesque home region of Nara in western Japan, days after Lee visited Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing.
They agreed to strengthen cooperation on economic security, regional and global issues, as well as artificial intelligence, South Korea’s presidential office said.
Photo: AFP
Looming in the background of the meeting was Japan’s heated diplomatic spat with China, triggered by Takaichi’s suggestion in November that Tokyo could intervene militarily if China attacks Taiwan.
China reacted angrily, blocking exports to Japan of “dual-use” items with potential military applications, fuelling worries in Japan that Beijing could choke supplies of much-needed rare earths.
Takaichi said she told Lee that “while advancing Japan-South Korea relations, both countries should cooperate to ensure regional stability and fulfill their respective roles.”
“As the environment surrounding both of our countries becomes ever more severe, our bilateral relations, as well as the cooperation among Japan, South Korea and the United States, are assuming greater importance,” she later told a news conference.
At the beginning of his meeting with Takaichi, Lee said that cooperation between the two US allies “is more important than ever.”
“In this increasingly complex situation and within this rapidly changing international order, we must continue to make progress toward a better future,” Lee added.
They agreed to continue their “shuttle diplomacy” of regular meetings, Takaichi said, as well as work toward the complete denuclearization of North Korea.
Lee and Takaichi, who both took office last year, last met in October on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Gyeongju, South Korea.
It is Lee’s second visit to Japan since August, when he met Takaichi’s predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba.
The two were to have dinner last night, before visiting one of Japan’s oldest temples in Nara today.
“Behind closed doors, the leaders will certainly discuss the current Japan-China crisis, as Beijing’s retaliatory measures, including export controls, will have an impact on [South] Korea as well,” said Benoit Hardy-Chartrand, an East Asian geopolitics expert at Temple University’s Tokyo campus, with the supply chains of the three nations deeply intertwined.
Lee said in an interview with Japanese public broadcaster NHK that aired on Monday that it was not his place to “intervene or get involved” in the Japan-China row.
“From the standpoint of peace and stability in Northeast Asia, confrontation between China and Japan is undesirable,” he said. “We can only wait for China and Japan to resolve matters amicably through dialogue.”
Hardy-Chartrand said he believed “the South Korean government felt that it was necessary for President Lee to visit Japan not too long after going to China, in order to demonstrate that Seoul is not favoring one side over the other.”
Lee and Takaichi were also expected to discuss their relations with Washington, as US President Donald Trump’s unpredictability “has put in doubt old certainties and highlighted the importance of strengthening their ties,” he said.
On the bilateral front, bitter memories of Japan’s brutal occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 have cast a long shadow over Tokyo-Seoul ties.
Lee’s conservative predecessor, Yoon Suk-yeol, who declared martial law in December 2024 and was removed from office, had sought to improve relations with Japan.
Lee is also relatively more dovish toward North Korea than was Yoon, and has said that South Korea and Japan are like “neighbors sharing a front yard.”
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
RSS