South Korea walks a narrow bridge between China and Japan

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is spending the first weeks of the new year attempting a feat of diplomatic engineering that would challenge the most experienced leader. He began the year in Beijing, the first official visit by a South Korean president since 2019. In the coming week, he is scheduled to join Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in her hometown.

China and Japan each is eager to draw South Korea to its side as President Lee walks across a narrowing bridge between them. His task is to foster closer ties while avoiding being drawn into conflict, even perhaps to help ease tensions.

This careful management of the complex triangular relations in the region takes place against a backdrop of growing global uncertainty, manifest in US President Donald Trump’s aggressive intervention in Venezuela. In the capitals of Northeast Asia – as well as in Europe – the talk is of a world splintering into spheres of influence.

“Trump’s America seeks to position itself not as a global hegemon but as a great power whose sphere of influence is the American continent,”commented Jung E-gil, senior international affairs writer at the South Korean dailyHankyoreh. “Looking at the situation surrounding Ukraine, Taiwan and Venezuela, one wonders if the US, China and Russia are now carving up separate spheres of influence.”

Xi woos Lee to join hands against Japan

Lee’s four-day visit to China was a continuation of a Chinese charm offensive toward the new government that began with Xi’s attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit late last year. As was the case then, the language and messaging of the China visit were mainly focused on friendship and mutual benefit, founded in deepening economic and cultural cooperation. The South Korean leader was accompanied by some 200 corporate leaders, making the focus clear.

But Xi and his colleagues did not conceal their concerted effort to frame the relationship in the historical context of shared battles against the Japanese Empire, which China now contends isbeing revivedunder Takaichi. Chinese officials greeted the assumption of power by the conservative nationalist with skepticism, given her unapologetic views of Japan’s wartime past.

They moved into outright hostility after Takaichi’s November 7 remarks suggesting Japan could get involved in a conflict in the Taiwan Straits. Chinese retaliation continues to grow, most recently threatening restrictions on exports of “dual-use” technology.

Theofficial Chinese readoutfrom the visit was explicit in promoting the idea that the two countries should join hands against Japan:

Both countries, with broad common interests, should stand firmly on the right side of history and make correct strategic choices. Over 80 years ago, China and the ROK made great sacrifices in resisting Japanese militarism and achieved the victory. Today, it is all the more important for the two sides to join hands to defend the victorious outcomes of World War II, and safeguard peace and stability of Northeast Asia.

Lee was ready to accommodate Xi in one key respect—thereaffirmation of South Korea’s standing policy on Taiwan. He told Xi that he “respects” China’s position on “one China.”

He made a nod toward China’s and Korea’s shared history of opposition to Japanese imperialism. Contrary to the words of the Chinese readout, the Republic of Korea itself wasn’t founded until 1948, but many Koreans found ways to oppose Japan’s colonial rule between 1910 and the 1945 liberation. Lee on this China visit made a symbolic stop in Shanghai to mark the anniversary of the birth of one of the most prominent of those, Kim Ku, who led a Korean government in exile there.

Otherwise, as foreign policy scholar Moon Chung-in had anticipated in an interview with this writer, Lee was “much more prudent on Beijing’s push for collective action against Takaichi’s remarks on history” as he tried to balance South Korea’s strategic cooperative relationship with China while “retaining its alliance with the US.”

Lee left more empty-handed in his effort to secure Xi’s support in pressing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to return to dialogue and engagement with South Korea. Despite vague words about dialogue, there wasno mentionof the situation on the Korean Peninsula, much less any reiteration of past statements supporting the “denuclearization” of the peninsula, a formula sought by Seoul.

Can Takaichi match the pragmatism of Lee?

For the next stop in President Lee’s diplomatic obstacle course, Japan, he isheadingto what many hope will be a breakthrough meeting with Takaichi, hosted by thecurrently popularleader in her hometown of Nara, some thirty minutes east of Osaka.

The two leaders had a friendly forty-five-minute meeting on the sidelines of the APEC conference, where Lee went out of his way to defy a widely held view of him as “anti-Japanese.” He embraced a “forward-looking” relationship, building on progress made by the previous conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration and his Japanese counterparts.

This has led to expectations that the two leaders can forge an unexpected partnership, based in part on shared apprehensions about China and an unspoken need to coordinate a response to the Trump administration.

“The deteriorating security environment in the Indo-Pacific makes it even more necessary for these leaders to collaborate,”wrote Japanese scholar Ayumi TeraokainForeignAffairs. “In particular, Washington’s renewed unpredictability and waning engagement in multilateral forums require Japan and South Korea to work together to sustain regional public goods and protect their interests.”

This optimism rests on several untested assumptions—that difficult issues of wartime and colonial history that have bedeviled the relationship can be put aside and Takaichi can bury her well-known conservative nationalist views and mirror the pragmatism of Lee. And it also assumes that the two leaders have a shared view of the regional security situation.

The two-day Nara visit could go smoothly if they steer clear of difficult questions. But there are already signs that this may be a challenge, especially for the Japanese prime minister. She did not hesitate to proclaim that the disputed islands of Dokdo (Takeshima for Japan) are being “illegally occupied.” Takaichi regularly and defiantly visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine to Japan’s war dead and has left open the possibility that she would go as prime minister.

Lee is committed to establishing a working relationship with Takaichi. “His shuttle diplomacy with Takaichi in Nara on Jan. 13 will go well as long as she does not provoke him on Dokdo or other history issues,” predicts Yonsei University scholar Moon.

But it may not be enough to momentarily avoid sensitive subjects. Real progress remains to be made on resolving these issues, includingcompensation for forced labor victimsand their families from decades ago – an issue that could lead to seizure of Japanese corporate assets. For Korean progressives, simply focusing on the strategic situation is not sufficient.

“They cannot simply avoid historical and territorial issues,” theprogressive dailyKyunghyang Shinmuneditorialized. “Japan has remained completely indifferent to historical issues. This may be partly due to South Korea’s lack of strong opposition. I hope this summit will mark a turning point in resolving historical issues.”

There is no evidence, however, that Takaichi is interested in doing more than just keeping up the appearance of cooperation. Perhaps more challenging for Lee is that the Japanese leader is clearly locked into a confrontational approach toward China, which has become a key plank of the political coalition she is forming between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and other smaller parties.

Still, President Lee seems poised, for now, to manage the journey from China to Japan. What follows is less clear.

“Seoul’s choreography of summitry with Washington, Tokyo, and Beijing has been masterful,” says former US Ambassador to Korea Kathleen Stephens. “But the real challenges will come when real choices have to be made.”

Daniel C. Sneider is a non-resident distinguished fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America and a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Stanford University. All views are the author’s alone.

This article, originally publilshed by KEI, is republished with permission.