South Korean President Lee Jae Myung made his first state visit to China since taking office last year.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on Jan. 5 called on the Chinese communist regime to work with his nation to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula, as tensions escalate following Pyongyang’s test-firing of missiles hours before his visit to Beijing.
Lee is in Beijing for a four-day state visit, the first time since 2019 that a South Korean president has traveled to China.
In the opening remarks at the summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Lee said Beijing and Seoul should work together for peace on the Korean Peninsula.
He told Xi that they can “make joint contributions to promote peace,” which he described as “the foundation for prosperity and growth.”
Lee’s trip, which also includes a stop in Shanghai, comes two months after Xi’s visit to South Korea, his first in more than a decade. Xi also met with U.S. President Donald Trump in October in an attempt to ease trade tensions before attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Just hours before Lee departed for Beijing on Jan. 4, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test-firing of the hypersonic missiles, which he declared demonstrated the “readiness of the DPRK’s nuclear forces,” Pyongyang’s state media outlet KCNA reported on Jan. 5, using the acronym of the country’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
KCNA said that the hypersonic missiles were fired from the nation’s capital region and hit targets about 620 miles away from the East Sea of Korea, the water that lies between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
According to a Jan. 5 readout released by the Korean president’s office, the two leaders reaffirmed that peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula serve the “common interests of the two Koreas” and confirmed Beijing’s willingness to “play a constructive role” to achieve that goal.
There was no mention of Pyongyang or the Korean Peninsula in the Chinese summary of the meeting.
Instead, Xi highlighted the two nations’ efforts to fight against Japanese militarism more than eight decades ago, calling on Seoul to collaborate with Beijing to defend what he called “the achievements of victory in World War II” and to safeguard the “peace and stability of Northeast Asia,” according to the readout from China’s foreign ministry.
The meeting took place against a backdrop of rising tensions between Beijing and Tokyo.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sought to rally international support to isolate Japan, after its verbal threats and economic retaliations failed to pressure Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi into retracting her comments on a hypothetical Taiwan contingency. Takaichi, in response to a parliamentary question in November 2025, said that a naval blockade against Taiwan may constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, a definition that could enable Japan to mobilize its military.
The CCP views self-ruled Taiwan as its own territory to be taken by force if necessary. Despite that the CCP has never governed the democracy of 23 million people, the leadership in Beijing frequently warns foreign governments that unification with Taiwan is at the core of the regime’s interests.
Xi, at the meeting with Lee, said that Seoul and Beijing should respect each other’s chosen development paths and “look after each other’s core interests and major concerns,” according to the Chinese regime’s foreign ministry.
Following the exchanges, the two leaders witnessed the signing of 15 cooperation documents on sectors including technology, transportation, environmental cooperation, and trade, according to China’s foreign ministry and Lee’s office.
By Dorothy Li
