South Korean President Lee Jae-ming, who just came to power, was called "Korean version of Trump" by foreign media. South Korea's "Jiangyu" also once said that he was "pro-China and anti-US."

So this time his coming to power is also believed that it may change the relationship between South Korea and China and North Korea.

The reason why foreign media evaluate him as the "Korean version of Trump" is because he is also a person with very fierce words and very radical behavior, and he also has more than 600,000 followers on social media.

Last year, Yoon Seok-hyung announced that South Korea had entered a state of emergency martial law, Lee Jae-ming broadcasted live online, specifically broadcasting the process of climbing over the wall to enter the Congress, and called on South Korean people to go to the Congress Hall to protect the Congress.

It is precisely because of his outgoing personality and clear position that he has also suffered hostile revenge. He was assassinated and stabbed in the neck when he visited the construction site of the new airport in Busan last year.

Li Zaiming's political proposition

But these are not the highlights. The highlights are that the president once clearly held an anti-Japanese stance during the election.

In 2023, Li Zaiming took a hunger strike for 20 days, opposing the nuclear-polluted water discharge from Japan at that time. Moreover, in 2016, Lee Jae-ming posted a message on social media regarding the signing of the South Korea-Japan Military Intelligence Protection Agreement between Japan and South Korea at that time, saying: "Japan not only invaded the Korean Peninsula, but also continued to provoke on the Dokdo issue. Japan is actually South Korea's enemy country."

He also had a different attitude towards China and the Korean Peninsula. In a television debate in March 2022, Lee Jae-ming said: "The Russian-Ukraine War occurred because Ukraine had to seek to join NATO, which stimulated Russia."

So, he said, "If South Korea wants peace, it should reduce the stimulus to its neighboring powers." His attitude towards China and North Korea is to solve problems peacefully and friendlyly.

Li Zaiming said many years ago that if he is elected as president of South Korea, he will cancel the THAAD deployment and regain the combat command of the South Korean army. At that time, he said, "THAAD has only 48 missiles, and more than half of South Korea's area and population are located outside the area protected by THAAD. The United States uses THAAD to block China's seaports by deploying THAAD, which is entirely for the interests of the United States. THAAD cannot curb North Korea, but may make the Korean Peninsula a battlefield for struggle for major powers.".

He was officially elected as President of South Korea many years later, and I wonder if he will really implement his former views in the future.

Last month, Lee Jae-ming said that US-South Korea relations are important, but " does not mean that we will rely entirely on the US-South Korea alliance"

because "The scale of trade between China and South Korea is very large. If China imposes economic sanctions on South Korea, South Korea will be unable to bear the consequences of the sanctions".

So he hopes to establish a more balanced relationship with major powers in the current global situation.

Neither side with the United States nor alienate China.

In 2024, China-South Korea trade volume exceeded 2.3 trillion yuan, and China is one of South Korea's largest export markets. Samsung, LG, and Hyundai are all inseparable from China. Therefore, after Li Zaiming took office, he is also expected to accelerate the second phase of the China-South Korea Free Trade Agreement negotiations and expand cooperation between the two countries in high-tech fields such as AI, green energy, and new materials. For example, it will promote Korean companies to expand their factories in China, promote LG and other companies to invest in Chinese power battery recycling plants, etc.

So, Li Zaiming's coming to power may be a good thing for China compared to before.

Especially, cooperation opportunities in the technology industry chain will increase, and some related companies in semiconductors, power batteries, and AI technology will likely benefit from this in the future.

He is more rational and pragmatic than his ex. The sense of politics is also more sensitive...

So, we also look forward to further "business exchanges" between China and South Korea in the future.

Source:

Reuters Report

Wikipedia

Wall Street Journal

Observer Network