ED Inaugural summit calls
President Lee Jae-myung holds his first call with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the presidential official in Yongsan, Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap
Lee Jae-myung must reset Korea's diplomatic engine; pursue specific goals
Having started work immediately the day after the June 3 snap election, President Lee Jae-myung has already had three major rounds of phone calls with the leaders of the United States, Japan and China, Korea's three most important partner nations. Lee spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping for about 30 minutes Tuesday. During the conversation, Xi expressed China's desire to develop further cooperation within the framework of the bilateral partnership, and Lee responded by delivering that more "bilateral exchanges in the economy, security and culture, grounded in the principles of mutual respect and reciprocity" should take place, according to the presidential office.
Lee invited Xi to attend this year's APEC meeting in Gyeongju in late October, as China is set to host next year's summit. If this visit materializes, it will be a first step toward possible goodwill in Northeast Asia.
After speaking with U.S. President Donald Trump last week, along with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba Monday, and now also Xi, Lee has pulled up the curtains on Korea's diplomatic stage, which has largely suffered a leadership vacuum in the past six months. The order of the calls was meant to be both procedural and symbolic as the liberal president sent the message that he is focused on pragmatic diplomacy. In contrast, after his 2017 election to office, former President Moon Jae-in, who engaged China aggressively, albeit with few results, spoke with the Chinese leader before the Japanese prime minister.
In his talks with the U.S. and Japanese leaders, Lee reaffirmed that the alliance between Korea and U.S. is central to Korea's diplomacy and security affairs and that he will maintain and further develop the trilateral cooperation between the three nations, easing the concerns caused by his past remarks on China and on joint Korea-U.S. military drills.
All told, the consensus is that the president has put his best foot forward in his initial conversations with the three leaders, tackling diplomatic issues in broad strokes. In the days ahead, the devil will be in the details, compelling the Lee administration and his incoming foreign affairs team to maneuver through complex issues to serve national interests.
In the deepening U.S.-China rivalry, with each nation aggressively staking out lead positions in global supply chains, Xi, while urging the two countries to strengthen exchanges, spoke about the need to "jointly project multilateralism and free trade, and guarantee stable and smooth supply chains." China is often Korea's largest export market but as nations warily measure their place in the global supply chain, Korea needs to be assertive while also cooperating with trading partners in support of the Korean economy.
Xi also urged the two nations to respect each other's core interests and major concerns, one of which may well be the Taiwan issue, while the two leaders agreed to work for peace on the Korean Peninsula. The new incoming foreign affairs team should craft a sophisticated road map for how Korea can contribute, cooperate and compromise on these important issues if necessary.
As Korea and Japan mark 60 years of bilateral ties, Lee and Ishiba agreed on the importance of strengthening them further. Ishiba told Lee that the bilateral relations should advance "through mutual efforts based on the foundation built by both governments so far." Lee's pragmatism toward Japan should be forward-focused. Forging private-level economic cooperation, as proposed by the business community in the two nations, is a specific goal worth pursuing.
As Lee prepares to make his global debut at the G7 Summit from Sunday to Tuesday in Canada, he should hit the ground running and engage with world leaders to get a sense of what Korea can achieve and where it has to make deals. Lee would do well to expand more details on his pragmatism toward world leaders to give further clarity. Lee must prepare thoroughly and should soon form the team that will accompany him at the summit.