Selfie diplomacy: SoKor’s Lee, Xi in ‘shot of a lifetime’
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took a selfie with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday night using a Xiaomi smartphone gifted by the Chinese leader last year and posted it on a social media account.
“I got the shot of a lifetime,” Lee wrote in an X post, which also showed two other shots of them accompanied by their wives. He added, “We will communicate more frequently and cooperate more in the future.”
Lee, who is on a four-day state visit to China, snapped the selfie after a dinner with Xi in Beijing.
On Tuesday, he held talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and top legislator Zhao Leji, the No. 3 in the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s leadership, before traveling to Shanghai.
Xi sent the Xiaomi smartphone to Lee during their talks last November in Gyeongju, South Korea, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit.
Is it secure?
At that time, Lee jokingly asked whether communication using the device is secure. Xi responded by urging Lee to check if the smartphone has a “backdoor,” a software that allows third-party monitoring and surveillance.
In his talks with Zhao, Lee asked China to consider leasing a new pair of giant pandas to South Korea. The request came a day after an agreement was reached during the talks between Lee and Xi to launch working-level discussions on the matter.
At present, there are four pandas in South Korea.
On Wednesday, Lee is set to visit a historic site in Shanghai that once housed the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea established by independence activists during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
