President Lee Jae-myung on the 7th, speaking about China-Korea relations, said, "Korea's core interests must be respected. That includes nuclear-powered submarines."
At 1 p.m. (Korean time) that day, the president said this at a press briefing with the traveling press corps at the Shanghai Press Center in China.
Referring to the China-Korea summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the 5th, the president said, "A summit is not for small talk; each side says what it has to say. I simply said what I had to say," adding, "More confidential matters are discussed behind closed doors, and in that setting I said that 'each nation's core interests and concerns must be respected.'"
He went on, "President Xi is doing his utmost for the Chinese state, and Lee Jae-myung did his utmost for Korea's national interest," adding, "Where needed, we compromise and adjust—that is how relations between nations work, I said directly. Please understand it as a setting where each side does what it must do."