Fresh from China, South Korea president to visit Japan

By Hieun SHIN
Seoul (AFP) Jan 9, 2026

South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung will travel to Japan next week for talks with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Seoul said Friday, days after meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.

The visit to Takaichi's picturesque hometown of Nara on Tuesday and Wednesday follows major Chinese military drills around Taiwan, and North Korea firing ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.

Tokyo and Beijing are also embroiled in a diplomatic spat triggered by Takaichi's suggestion in November that Japan could intervene militarily if China attacks Taiwan.

Lee and Takaichi, who both took office in 2025, last met in October on the sidelines of the APEC summit in the South Korean city of Gyeongju.

This will be Lee's second visit to Japan since last August, when he met Takaichi's predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba.

The South Korean leader will hold a summit meeting and dinner with Takaichi in Nara on Tuesday, where the two will discuss "regional and global issues", Lee's office said.

They will also explore ways to "strengthen practical cooperation across a wide range of areas directly affecting people's livelihoods, including the economy, society and culture," it added.

"The visit is expected to help cement a future-oriented and stable trajectory for South Korea-Japan relations" through an "early bilateral visit following Takaichi's inauguration," his office added.

- Dark past -

Relations have long suffered over issues related to Japan's brutal 1910-45 occupation of the Korean peninsula, and there have been concerns that ties could worsen under the conservative Takaichi.

Lee's conservative predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol -- before declaring martial law in December 2024 and being removed from office -- sought to improve relations with Japan.

Lee takes a relatively more dovish approach than Yoon towards North Korea, and has said South Korea and Japan are like "neighbours sharing a front yard".

Lee met with President Xi this week, in the first visit to China by a South Korean leader in six years. Lee took the opportunity to snap a selfie together.

Lee's Beijing trip came less than a week after China's massive military drills around Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory.

The exercise, featuring missiles, fighter jets, navy ships and coastguard vessels, drew a chorus of international condemnation, including from Tokyo but notably not from Seoul.

The South Korean leader has also stayed on the sidelines of Japan and China's current dispute.

This has seen Beijing warn its nationals to avoid Japan, impose trade restrictions and summon home Japan's last two pandas one month early.

On Wednesday, Lee told reporters "relations with Japan are just as important as relations with China".

"There was a prevailing tone of appreciation (from Japanese media) that South Korea refrained from raising sensitive issues (with Xi)," presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a briefing on Friday.

"President Lee, in fact, did not discuss any sensitive issues with the Chinese side," she added.

Yee Kuang Heng, a professor in international security at the University of Tokyo, said he did not expect Lee to bring any particular message from Xi to Takaichi.

"However, the two leaders may discuss the fallout from China's economic coercion that both ROK (South Korea) and Japan have experienced over the years," Heng told AFP.

"Takaichi will be wary of China's wedge strategy designed to drive divisions between ROK and Japan and will want to re-emphasise common ground shared between Seoul and Tokyo," he added.