Takaichi and Lee last met at the Apec Summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, in October 2025. - Reuters
SEOUL: South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung will travel to Japan next week for talks with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Seoul said Friday (Jan 9), days after meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.
The visit, on Tuesday and Wednesday, comes amid heightened regional tensions following China's military drills around Taiwan late last month, as well as ballistic missiles fired by North Korea into the Sea of Japan.
Lee and Takaichi 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", South Korea's presidential 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," Lee's office said.
"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.
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 Takaichi.
South Korea's former conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol sought to improve relations with Japan.
Lee, who takes a relatively more dovish approach than Yoon towards North Korea, has said South Korea and Japan are like "neighbours sharing a front yard".
Lee met with Chinese President Xi this week, the first by a South Korean leader in six years.
Lee's Beijing trip came less than a week after China carried out 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 that Seoul has notably declined to join.
The South Korean leader, deftly stayed on the sidelines since a nasty spat erupted between Beijing and Tokyo late last year, triggered by Takaichi's suggestion that Japan could intervene militarily if China attacks Taiwan.
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 (during the summit 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. - AFP
