Seoul : South Korean President emphasized that the country will stand firmly with the US while carefully managing its diplomatic and economic ties with China amid rising regional tensions.
“We will stand together with the US in the new global order and in supply chains centred on the US, but we must manage our relationship with China so as not to antagonise them,” Lee said, Yonhap reported, citing his interview with the US weekly magazine TIME.
He warned that South Korea could face “a risk of becoming the front line of a battle between two different blocs,” marking his 100 days in office.
Lee noted that South Korea’s past strategy of “relying for security on the US and economically on China” no longer works amid a radical shift in the geopolitical environment.
Instead, Lee said South Korea aims to act as a “bridge” between the US and China to prevent relations from spiralling in the new era of great power competition.
While strengthening ties with Washington, Seoul has faced challenges, including a recent immigration crackdown on South Korean workers at a Georgia battery plant and ongoing trade negotiations over its US$350 billion investment pledge in exchange for lowering US tariffs to 15 per cent.
He described the talks as tense, adding that US demands were so strict that “if I agreed, then I would be impeached! So I asked the US negotiating team for a reasonable alternative.”
On North Korea, Lee said South Korea could consider easing sanctions if Pyongyang freezes its nuclear and missile programs as part of his phased denuclearisation road map.
He expressed support for “negotiations to partially ease or lift sanctions” in exchange for a three-stage process: suspension, reduction, and finally complete denuclearisation.
“As our short-term goal, we should stop their nuclear and missile programs. We might compensate them for some measures and then pursue disarmament to achieve full denuclearisation,” Lee told TIME. “I believe President (Donald) Trump would agree.”
Lee stressed the importance of finding “a middle ground” through negotiations, arguing that past strategies of applying pressure solely through sanctions no longer succeed.
“If we tell North Korea to just stop, would they halt their programs?” he asked. “Continuing the current pressure will likely lead North Korea to produce more bombs.”
Since 2017, the UN has imposed strict sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and missile programs, but the country has reportedly received food and other necessities from Russia in exchange for supplying military equipment and troops for the war in Ukraine.
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