South Korean President Lee Jae Myung hosted Xi Jinping for their first meeting on Saturday (November 1, 2025) as the Chinese head of state took centre stage and reforged old ties at an Asian summit from which U.S. leader Donald Trump was largely absent.

The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came on the final day of Mr. Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade and a day after his meeting with Canada’s premier reset damaged ties.

Mr. Trump flew to South Korea for the summit but promptly jetted home on Thursday (November 30, 2025) after sealing a trade war pause with Mr. Xi, the pair agreeing to dial down a dispute that has roiled markets and disrupted global supply chains.

His departure left the Chinese leader to take centre stage at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he framed Beijing as a responsible power against the chaos unleashed by the United States on the international order.

Mr. Lee welcomed Mr. Xi at a grand opening ceremony complete with soldiers wearing traditional garb.

The visit was the Chinese leader’s first since 2014 and comes after years of strained ties over everything from trade to cultural disputes.

Mr. Lee told Mr. Xi he had “long looked forward to meeting you in person” and framed his trip as a reset in relations.

“As our two countries move from a vertical structure of economic cooperation to a more horizontal and mutually beneficial one, we must work together to build a relationship that delivers shared prosperity,” Mr. Lee told Mr. Xi, whose vast economy represents South Korea’s largest trading partner.

Mr. Xi, in turn, described China and South Korea as “important neighbours that cannot be moved and also partners that cannot be separated”.

He told Mr. Lee that the two countries should “respect each other’s societal differences and development paths… (and) resolve contradictions and disagreements through friendly consultation”, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Rekindle ties

Mr. Lee also pitched China as a partner in Seoul’s efforts to rekindle frayed ties with North Korea, with which it remains technically at war.

Stressing the need for “stability” in the region, Mr. Lee noted “recent high-level exchanges between China and North Korea” — an apparent reference to leader Kim Jong Un’s recent attendance at a major military parade in Beijing.

Those meetings, Mr. Lee said, “are helping to create conditions for renewed engagement with Pyongyang”.

“I hope that South Korea and China will strengthen strategic communication… and work together to resume dialogue with the North,” Mr. Lee told Mr. Xi.

Ahead of their meeting, Pyongyang had dismissed Seoul’s hopes for denuclearisation as a “pipedream” which “can never be realised even if it talks about it a thousand times”.

South Korea’s national security advisor Wi Sung-lac said Mr. Xi reaffirmed to Mr. Lee that China “would continue efforts to help resolve issues and promote peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.

During Mr. Xi’s visit Seoul said South Korea and China had renewed their 70 trillion won ($49 billion) currency swap agreement for another five years, and hoped the deal would “help stabilise the financial and foreign exchange markets of both countries”.

The two countries also signed several MOUs, including on a joint response to voice phishing and online scams, Seoul said.

Passing the baton

Mr. Lee earlier passed the APEC baton to Mr. Xi, who will host next year’s summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

With the U.S president absent, Mr. Xi has used APEC to reach out to countries with which Beijing has had frosty relations.

He met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the event on Friday (October 31, 2025), the first formal talks between the two countries’ leaders since 2017.

Mr. Xi told the Liberal leader he was determined to work together to get relations back on the “right track” and invited Mr. Carney to visit China.

Mr. Carney described the meeting as a “turning point” in ties between Ottawa and Beijing.

Canada’s relations with China are among the worst of any Western nation.

However, they could find common ground because they are both at the sharp end of Mr. Trump’s tariff onslaught, even after Mr. Xi and the U.S. leader’s deal on Thursday (November 30, 2025) to dial back tensions.

Mr. Carney said on Saturday (November 1, 2025) he had apologised to Mr. Trump over an anti-tariff ad featuring former U.S. leader Ronald Reagan that sent the president into a rage, leading him to cancel trade talks and slap additional 10% tariffs on Canada.

Trade talks would restart when the United States was “ready”, Mr. Carney said.

And, he said, he had accepted Mr. Xi’s invitation to visit “in the new year”.

Mr. Xi also sat down on Friday (October 31, 2025) with Japan’s new premier Sanae Takaichi, long seen as a China hawk.

She told Mr. Xi she wanted a “strategic and mutually beneficial relationship”.

Published – November 01, 2025 10:06 pm IST

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday (August 25, 2025) he hoped to meet again with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, as he held White House talks with South Korea’s dovish new leader that got off awkwardly.

Hours before President Lee Jae Myung arrived for his long-planned first visit to the White House, Mr. Trump took to social media to denounce what he said was a “Purge or Revolution” in South Korea, apparently over raids that involved churches.

Forty minutes into an Oval Office meeting in which Mr. Lee profusely praised Mr. Trump, the U.S. leader dismissed his own sharply worded rebuke, saying, “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding” as “there is a rumour going around.”

Mr. Trump said he believed he was on the same page on North Korea as Mr. Lee, a progressive who supports diplomacy over confrontation.

Mr. Trump, who met Kim Jong Un three times in his first term, hailed his relationship with the young totalitarian and said he knew him “better than anybody, almost, other than his sister.”

“Someday I’ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me,” Mr. Trump told reporters, saying he hoped the talks would take place this year.

Mr. Trump once said that he and Mr. Kim “fell in love” during their meetings, which reduced tensions but failed to produce a lasting agreement.

But Mr. Kim has since been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight.

North Korea has dug in and refused any talk of ending its nuclear weapons program.

‘Trump Tower’ in Pyongyang

Mr. Lee, a former labor rights lawyer who has criticised the U.S. military in the past, immediately flattered his host and said Mr. Trump has made the United States “not a keeper of peace, but a maker of peace.”

“I look forward to your meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un and the construction of Trump Tower in North Korea and playing golf there,” Mr. Lee told him.

He even cited propaganda from North Korea that denounced South Korea by noting that Pyongyang said the relationship with Mr. Trump was better.

Mr. Kim “will be waiting for you,” Mr. Lee told him.

In a speech after his meeting, Mr. Lee warned that North Korea could soon produce 10 to 20 nuclear weapons per year as well as a missile that can hit the United States despite pressure and sanctions.

“The hard fact is that the number of nuclear weapons that North Korea possesses has increased over the past three to four years,” Mr. Lee said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He highlighted his overtures to the North such as stopping the blaring of anti-Kim messages over loudspeakers on the military frontier.

Mr. Lee was elected in June after the impeachment of the more hawkish Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office after briefly imposing martial law.

The raids denounced by Mr. Trump likely referred in part to investigations surrounding Mr. Yoon’s conservative allies.

Seeking to buy base

Korean Air announced after the talks that it would buy more than 100 aircraft from U.S. manufacturer Boeing, as Mr. Trump presses allies hard for business.

Mr. Trump, who frequently accuses European allies of freeloading off the United States, made clear he would seek greater compensation by South Korea over the 28,500 US troops in the country.

He suggested the United States could seek to take over base land, an idea likely to enrage Mr. Lee’s brethren on the South Korean left.

“We spent a lot of money building a fort, and there was a contribution made by South Korea, but I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease and get ownership of the land where we have a massive military base,” Mr. Trump said.

He also spoke bluntly about one of South Korea’s most delicate issues: so-called “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery during Japan’s 1910-1945 rule.

The South Korean left has historically been outspoken about Japan’s legacy, although Mr. Lee visited Tokyo on his way to Washington, a highly symbolic stop praised by Trump.

Japan had agreed to compensate comfort women but the deal was criticised by survivors who questioned Tokyo’s sincerity.

Published – August 26, 2025 12:09 pm IST

South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung meets Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo, Japan, August 23, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung speaks during a press conference on removal of President Yoon Suk Yeol from office, at the party office at the National Assembly building in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

South Korea’s Opposition leader offered on Sunday (December 15, 2024) to work with the government to ease the political tumult as officials sought to reassure allies and markets, a day after the Opposition-controlled Parliament voted to impeach conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol over a short-lived attempt to impose martial law.

Liberal Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, whose party holds a majority in the National Assembly, urged the constitutional court to rule swiftly on Mr. Yoon’s impeachment and proposed a special council for cooperation between the government and Parliament.

Mr. Yoon’s powers have been suspended until the court decides whether to remove him from office or reinstate him. If Mr. Yoon is dismissed, a national election to choose his successor must be held within 60 days.

Mr. Lee, who has led a fierce political offensive against Mr. Yoon’s embattled government, is seen as the frontrunner to replace him.

He told a televised news conference that a swift court ruling would be the only way to “minimise national confusion and the suffering of people.”

The court will meet to begin considering the case on Monday (December 16, 2024), and has up to 180 days to rule. But observers say that a court ruling could come faster. In the case of Parliamentary impeachments of past Presidents — Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 and Park Geun-hye in 2016, the court spent 63 days and 91 days respectively before determining to reinstate Roh and dismiss Mr. Park.

Mr. Lee also proposed a national council where the government and the National Assembly would work together to stabilise state affairs, and said his party won’t seek to impeach the Prime Minister, a Mr. Yoon appointee who’s now serving as acting President.

“The Democratic Party will actively cooperate with all parties to stabilize state affairs and restore international trust,” Mr. Lee said. “The National Assembly and government will work together to quickly resolve the crisis that has swept across the Republic of Korea.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how the governing People Power Party would react to Mr. Lee’s proposal. Kim Woong, a former PPP lawmaker, accused Mr. Lee of attempting to exert power over state affairs.

The Democratic Party has used its Parliamentary majority to impeach the Justice Minister and the chief of the national police over the martial law decree, and previously said it was also considering impeaching Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.

There was no immediate response from Mr. Han, a seasoned bureaucrat.

Upon assuming his role as acting leader, Mr. Han ordered the military to bolster its security posture to prevent North Korea from launching provocations. He also asked the Foreign Minister to inform other countries that South Korea’s major external policies will remain unchanged, and the Finance Minister to work to minimise potential negative impacts on the economy by the political turmoil.

On Sunday (Dec. 15), Mr. Han had a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden, discussing the political situation in South Korea and regional security challenges including North Korea’s nuclear program. Mr. Biden expressed his appreciation for the resiliency of democracy in South Korea and reaffirmed “the ironclad commitment” of the United States, according to both governments.

Mr. Yoon’s Dec. 3 imposition of martial law, the first of its kind in more than four decades, lasted only six hours, but has caused massive political tumult, halted diplomatic activities and rattled financial markets. Mr. Yoon was forced to lift his decree after Parliament unanimously voted to overturn it.

Mr. Yoon sent hundreds of troops and police officers to the Parliament in an effort to stop the vote, but they withdrew after the Parliament rejected Mr. Yoon’s decree. No major violence occurred.

Opposition parties have accused Mr. Yoon of rebellion, saying a President in South Korea is allowed to declare martial law only during wartime or similar emergencies and would have no right to suspend Parliament’s operations even in those cases.

Mr. Yoon has rejected the charges and vowed to “fight to the end”. He said the deployment of troops to Parliament was aimed to issue a warning to the Democratic Party, which he called an “anti-state force” that abused its control of Parliament by holding up the government’s budget bill for next year and repeatedly pushing to impeach top officials.

Law enforcement institutions are investigating possible rebellion and other allegations. They’ve arrested Mr. Yoon’s Defence Minister and police chief and two other high-level figures.

Mr. Yoon has immunity from most criminal prosecution as President, but that doesn’t extend to allegations of rebellion or treason. He’s been banned from leaving South Korea, but observers doubt that authorities will detain him because of the potential for clashes with his Presidential security service.

Mr. Lee called for authorities to speed up their probes and said that an independent investigation by a special prosecutor should be launched as soon as possible. Last week, the National Assembly passed a law calling for an investigation led by a special prosecutor.

“Individuals and institutions involved in this act of rebellion should fully cooperate with the investigations,” Mr. Lee said.