Leaders of South Korea and Japan agree to improve ties

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi agreed on Tuesday to step up cooperation in areas including economic security, defense and searching for the remains of Korean forced labourers. The two neighbours are both longtime US allies, but their relations have frequently been strained by issues including disputes over their wartime history. "I believe cooperation between Korea and Japan is now more important than ever and anything else, as we have to continue moving forward to a new, better future amid this complex, unstable international order," Lee said at the outset of the summit.

During a joint news conference after the talks, the leaders said they had agreed to cooperate in areas including supply chains, artificial intelligence, measures against transnational crime and carrying out DNA analysis on remains that may belong to Korean forced laborers found last year at a former Japanese undersea mine. Takaichi said she had renewed her determination to further improve Japan's relations with South Korea "as I believe the two countries should cooperate and contribute for the stability in the region."

"This year I will elevate Japan-South Korea relations even higher," said a smiling Takaichi. She has worked to secure stable ties with Seoul while Tokyo struggles with a worsening dispute with China. Takaichi hosted Lee in her hometown, Nara, an ancient capital known for its treasured deer and centuries-old Buddhist temples.

Nara, the center of cultural exchanges between the Korean Peninsula and Japan in ancient times, "carries a special meaning at a time Korea-Japan exchanges are more important than ever," Lee said.

Lee proposed a meeting in the city during October's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea.

Takaichi took Lee on a tour Wednesday of Horyuji Temple and visited the Kondo main hall and the five-storied pagoda. They are from the late 7th or early 8th century and are among the world's oldest surviving wooden architecture and illustrate Japan's adoption of Buddhism via the Korean Peninsula.

Prior to the serene temple tour, Lee had a surprise jam session arranged by Takaichi, a heavy metal fan and a drummer in her college days, Tuesday night after the summit and performed K-pop hits including BTS's "Dynamite."

Japan's cultural, religious and political ties to the Korean Peninsula are ancient, but in modern times their relationship has been repeatedly disrupted by disputes stemming from Japan's brutal colonial rule of Korea from 1910-1945.

The Japanese prime minister faces intensifying trade and political tension with China over a remark about Taiwan that angered Beijing days after she took office. Takaichi said that potential Chinese military action against Taiwan, the island democracy Beijing claims as its own, could justify Japanese intervention.

Lee said he had reminded Takaichi of the importance of three-way cooperation with China. A trilateral summit, which Japan was supposed to host last year, did not happen due to Tokyo's worsening relations with Beijing.

While Lee was in Beijing for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week, he told reporters that relations with Japan are as important as those with China, but that South Korea's ability to broker reconciliation between its neighbors is limited.

It is not realistic for South Korea to be a mediator, said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. "Better for Lee to pragmatically pursue productive relations with all neighbors while speaking up for the principle that no actor should unilaterally change the status quo in the region by force."

Lee said the two leaders agreed to find ways to establish more comprehensive partnerships on economic security, science and technology sectors.

He and Takaichi also discussed the challenges of North Korea and agreed to cooperate in the effort to achieve the North's complete denuclearisation.

Japan and South Korea, both key U.S. allies, reaffirmed the strategic importance of their cooperation that also includes Washington, but did not comment on President Donald Trump's unpredictable diplomacy or his pressure to further increase their defense spending.

Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have begun improving in recent years in the face of shared challenges such as growing China-U.S. competition and North Korea's advancing nuclear program. There were early concerns about Takaichi's ability to work with Lee, fed by her reputation as a security hawk and an assumption by some that the left-wing South Korean leader would tilt toward North Korea and China. But so far, both leaders have sought to set aside their differences.

"They are both politicians focused on the national interest," Easley said. The two countries share many economic and security concerns, seek to reduce threats from North Korea through negotiations, to dissuade economic coercion from China and to manage foreign policy uncertainty with the United States, he said.

While avoiding their past historical disputes, the two leaders confirmed cooperation in an ongoing effort led by civil society groups to recover and identify remains found last year at the Chosei Mine, a former undersea mining site in the western Japanese prefecture of Yamaguchi, where about 180 workers, mostly Korean forced laborers, were killed in a 1942 accident. The leaders agreed on cooperation to conduct DNA analysis on the remains.

"It's small yet a meaningful" agreement on wartime history issues between the two countries, Lee said.