Lee’s Tokyo swing is best understood as a calibrated use of timing and leverage: an effort to align with Japan sufficiently to present a coherent posture amid a Trump-era mix of tariff brinkmanship, firm industrial bargaining, and heightened defence-spending demands, Hao Nan writes. The author is a participant of the Valdai – New Generation project.
South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung chose Tokyo on August 23 for his first bilateral visit – an unprecedented choice for a Korean president since the 1965 normalisation of ties – and concluded it with the first joint text in 17 years before continuing to Washington. The tableau conveys momentum: Japan as the first stop, the revival of the tradition of South Korea–Japan shuttle diplomacy, and a rare joint text to frame the moment. Yet symbolism does not, by itself, constitute strategy.
Lee’s Tokyo swing is best understood as a calibrated use of timing and leverage: an effort to align with Japan sufficiently to present a coherent posture amid a Trump-era mix of tariff brinkmanship, firm industrial bargaining, and heightened defence-spending demands. The product was a carefully worded “joint press release,” not a higher-order declaration – momentum, yes; redesign, no. In short, the trip affords space ahead of the White House; it does not recast the architecture of Seoul–Tokyo ties.
Value-based alignment with Washington, trilateral security ties with Washington and Tokyo, and North Korea’s constitutionally-enshrined hostility toward the South – all legacies of Yoon’s three-year administration – have pulled Seoul toward a narrow, security-first posture. Pyongyang’s stance has only hardened of late: Kim Jong Un recently reaffirmed North Korea’s nuclear status as “irreversible” and signalled he will engage only if Washington drops its denuclearisation obsession and accepts the North as a nuclear power. He has publicly deemed inter-Korean unification “unnecessary” and spurned President Lee’s overtures. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to expand its arsenal; by the US’ own assessment, Pyongyang’s ICBM tested last October is capable of striking the US mainland, the very security guarantor of South Korea. Such threats underscore why Lee has no other choice but to cling to the security-centric approach towards the US and Japan. Yet Lee’s Democratic Party base traditionally expects détente and economic diversification, pulling in the opposite direction. This tension confines him to incremental steps that lower the immediate temperature without building durable leverage. It is precisely why Lee can neither fully replicate Yoon nor decisively depart from him on Japan.
On the Japanese side, Prime Minister Ishiba has his own incentives. With rising domestic calls for him to step down and a complex phase in relations with Washington, Ishiba benefits from calm ties with Seoul and a carefully managed language on history. That favours measured texts and predictable choreography over ambitious, volatile deliverables. Atmospherics may be warm; commitments remain focused.
The schedule hinted at the strategy. The Tokyo stop fell just ahead of Lee’s first White House meeting on August 25, making the Japan leg a policy “pre-brief” and message alignment before larger negotiations in Washington. In that context, neither side wished to commit in advance on sensitive historical or trade issues that might complicate US-facing negotiations – a choice that kept deliverables deliberate and limited.
Process advanced; the structure remained unchanged. Working channels were revived, shuttle diplomacy resumed, and an economic-security agenda reaffirmed – hydrogen, clean energy, AI, youth exchanges, and supply-chain coordination all fit comfortably within existing frameworks. But there was no announced pathway to a bilateral FTA and no calendar for Seoul’s bid to join the Japan-led CPTPP – subjects widely discussed prior to the visit. The choice was continuity presented as renewal.
Industrial politics are exacting. Lee himself hinted that an FTA benchmarked to CPTPP tariff cuts could widen Korea’s trade deficit with Japan and affect politically sensitive sectors. Launching an FTA timeline on a first visit – especially on the eve of a US summit – was unlikely. Hence the focus on lower-risk “economic security” dialogues rather than binding tariff commitments.
Pre-visit commentary anticipated a text surpassing the historical landmark Kim Dae-jung–Keizō Obuchi Joint Declaration of 1998. The outcome was more modest: a joint press release, not a new, higher-order joint declaration. Much of the media discussion styled it as “the first joint statement in 17 years,” but whatever the label, it did not amount to a declaration-level upgrade in political symbolism or legal weight. A pragmatic beginning, yes, but not a historic leap.
Seoul paired “first stop Tokyo” with simultaneous signals toward China: dispatching former National Assembly speaker Park Byeong-seug to hand-deliver Lee’s personal letter to Beijing and confirming that Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik, ranked No. 2 in diplomatic protocol and a close ally of Lee, will attend Beijing’s September 3 commemorations. This choreography helps temper US–Japan sensitivities while maintaining a high-level channel to Beijing.
Such calibration is not costless. Tokyo signalled displeasure and urged foreign missions not to attend Beijing’s event; Washington’s transaction-heavy climate means Seoul must keep clarifying that legislative-level attendance doesn’t signify alliance drift. If economic upgrading with China fails to gain project-level traction, Beijing may view these gestures as largely symbolic and shape expectations accordingly.
The bargain with Washington centres on a 15% tariff “floor” paired with a substantial Korean investment-and-procurement package across shipbuilding, energy, aviation, autos, and critical minerals. Headlines highlight Korean Air’s aircraft orders, Hanwha’s Philadelphia shipyard commitments, a decade-long LNG arrangement, and Hyundai’s US capital expenditure – an alignment with “America First” industrial priorities that seeks to exchange capital and capacity for greater tariff certainty. Seoul pledged $350 billion in US investments as part of this deal, but Trump’s demand for the funds “up front” has met resistance – Lee’s advisers warn that an immediate outlay of that magnitude would risk plunging South Korea’s economy into crisis.
Implementation will be demanding. US shipbuilding plans confront legal and workforce constraints; timelines are long, waivers uncertain. Meanwhile, defence and base issues may be folded into a more transactional mix, and unresolved historical files can still unsettle trilateral atmospherics. All of this counsels prudence: implement the straightforward items; insulate the difficult ones; and avoid creating new veto points.
One could argue that momentum is the message: the first Tokyo visit since normalisation as a new president’s inaugural bilateral, the first joint text in 17 years, shuttle diplomacy restored – surely that resets the relationship. It resets tone. But structural change is measured by institutional lock-in and distributive compromises, not by communiqués alone. Wartime labour, comfort-women redress, and other “hard files” remain unaddressed in the text; the ceiling remains unchanged.
Why the careful choreography with Tokyo? Because the US – especially under Trump – has re-centred bargaining on tariffs, pressures on investment, and defence-cost shifting. In such a climate, Seoul and Tokyo share an immediate interest in presenting orderly coordination while each seeks to mitigate unilateral demands. This is a prudent hedge. It is not, by itself, the foundation of a new bilateral compact.
Lee’s presidency is expected to last until 2030, potentially coupled with a sustained legislative majority in the current domestic political climate. If South Korea wants to regain the regional strategic agency and manoeuvrability it once had but lost during Yoon’s administration and the ensuing half-year political chaos, tactical hedging must evolve into principled, diversified pragmatism. That means setting a clear hierarchy of ends – deterrence stability, crisis-risk reduction, economic resilience, and diplomatic access – then choosing tools and forums accordingly: US alliance management; Tokyo coordination with risk isolation on history; calibrated channels to Beijing, and eventually Moscow; Peninsula de-escalation circuitry; and ASEAN-centred multilateralism to stitch the trilateral into the region rather than wall it off.
The regional landscape is shifting around Seoul. A formal Russia–North Korea mutual defence treaty, deeper military-technological exchanges, and a firmer Northern posture raise deterrence costs and narrow Seoul’s room for manoeuvre. At the same time, China’s ambiguous economic leverage over Pyongyang and tacit alignment with Moscow complicate any one-dimensional instinct to “decouple”. Kim’s unprecedented appearance alongside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at a Beijing military parade this September vividly underscored this tightening coordination. Against that backdrop, a policy that is merely transactional or symbolic will not suffice.
One concrete indicator of whether Seoul is regaining strategic agency, beyond optics, will come at the late-October APEC Summit it hosts. If the meeting space is used for meaningful landmark engagement – be that a Trump–Xi, a Trump–Kim, or even a trilateral Trump–Kim–Lee encounter – it will suggest that Seoul can convene rather than be bypassed. If not, it will underscore the concern noted above: a nation largely responding to events it can hedge against more than shape.
Lee’s decision to make Tokyo his first stop, and to issue the first joint text in 17 years, unquestionably signals intent to stabilise – but stabilisation is not transformation. The “joint press release”, the absence of FTA/CPTPP tracks, and the careful sequencing around a US negotiation all point to tactical hedging, not a structural reset. To turn symbolism into strategy, Seoul must codify bargains with Washington, compartmentalise risk with Tokyo, translate China optics into projects, and re-open Korean peninsula de-risking channels – all while broadening its trilateral diplomacy into ASEAN-centred regionalism. This broader integration is crucial to avoid being hemmed into a single bloc. Ultimately, how deftly Lee balances the region’s overlapping strategic triangles – anchoring the alliance with Washington and Tokyo while countering the tightening Pyongyang–Beijing–Moscow alignment – will determine whether South Korea asserts itself as a convening power or remains largely reactive to others’ moves. Until then, the lesson of the Tokyo trip is clear: it was a well-executed hedge in the face of a highly transactional superpower, not yet the dawn of a new Japan–Korea era.
