President Lee Jae-myung said on the 7th, "Korea-China relations are necessary for each other. There is no need to provoke, exclude, or confront unnecessarily."
At 1 p.m. (Korea time) that day, Lee held a press briefing with the traveling press corps at the Shanghai Press Center in China and made the remarks.
Lee said, "Our government is pursuing foreign policy focused on practical diplomacy that helps only the people's lives and the nation's future, not ideology or camps," adding, "China is an important neighboring country for us in all areas—economy, security, and culture."
He went on, "If we make good use of the existing environment, we can create a better one, so why needlessly manufacture issues and trigger conflict?" and added, "From now on, let's shift to a relationship that helps each other. Korea-China relations have changed a lot."
Lee also said, "In the past, it was a vertical division of labor in which we leveraged our advanced technology and capital with China's land and low-cost labor, but that era is over," adding, "This visit to China is an important diplomatic schedule to strengthen Korea's national interest amid a changing international order and to develop Korea-China relations more stably and maturely."