July 3, 2025
SEOUL – Seoul has been carefully weighing whether President Lee Jae Myung will attend China’s Sept. 3 commemoration marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, as Beijing publicly expressed that Lee would be welcome to participate.
Beijing has recently floated the possibility of Lee’s participation through various channels, including not only official diplomatic avenues, but also private meetings involving scholars, according to multiple sources.
An official invitation from the Chinese government has not yet been delivered to the South Korean government, according to government sources.
However, Seoul views Beijing’s continued inquiries about Lee’s willingness to attend — conveyed through diplomatic channels — as effectively constituting a de facto invitation, prompting careful deliberation over its response.
The South Korean presidential office said Wednesday, “Korea and China are communicating regarding whether President Lee Jae Myung will attend China’s Sept. 3 Victory Day event marking its 80th anniversary.”
“However, it is difficult to disclose the specific details of the discussions held through diplomatic channels,” the presidential office said in a statement.
Asked about Beijing’s invitation to President Lee, the Chinese Embassy in Seoul told The Korea Herald, “China welcomes Korea’s participation in this year’s commemorative event.”
“When the 70th anniversary ceremony was held, the attendance of the Korean leader at China’s invitation had a positive effect,” the embassy added Wednesday.
The Chinese government has announced plans to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II — observed annually on Sept. 3 — with events including a military parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and invitations to foreign leaders.
Seoul and Beijing also discussed Lee’s potential participation in the Sept. 3 celebrations during director general-level talks held in Seoul on Tuesday, The Korea Herald has learned from conversations with government sources.
Kang Young-shin, director general for Northeast and Central Asian affairs at the South Korean Foreign Ministry, met with Liu Jinsong, director general of the Department of Asian Affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, for the talks, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul announced Wednesday.
However, a statement issued by Seoul’s Foreign Ministry following the meeting did not mention whether the two sides discussed Lee’s potential attendance at the Sept. 3 commemorations.
“Both the Korean and Chinese sides agreed to continue communication at all levels based on a shared understanding to develop Korea-China relations on the occasion of the APEC Summit in Gyeongju,” the ministry said in a statement.
Echoing the sentiment, the presidential office also underscored that “Korea and China have also been in close communication, based on a shared understanding to advance bilateral relations using APEC as a platform.”
The South Korea-hosted Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will take place in the city of Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, from late October to early November, with China set to host next year’s summit.
Lee formally invited Xi to attend this year’s APEC summit in South Korea during their first phone call in early June. Seoul has high expectations for Xi’s first visit to South Korea since July 2014, on the occasion of the summit.
Then-President Moon Jae-in visited China twice during his term — in December 2017 and December 2019, but Xi did not make a return visit. Seoul views it as the Chinese president’s turn to reciprocate with a visit to South Korea.
Observers note that the invitation, which comes at a diplomatically delicate time for Seoul, is a test of Lee’s pragmatic diplomacy.
“China seeks to achieve a quantum leap in Korea-China relations and to check the United States by reinforcing multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region, through a reciprocal exchange — President Lee Jae Myung’s attendance at the Sept. 3 celebrations in return for President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the Gyeongju APEC Summit,” said Doo Jin-ho, director of the Eurasia Research Center at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
Doo said China regards this year’s Victory Day on Sept. 3 and the 2025 APEC Summit in Gyeongju as major political events both domestically and internationally.
“With the launch of the Lee Jae Myung administration, Beijing is seen as having high expectations of better Korea-China ties,” Doo said.
“China’s invitation to the Sept. 3 event — coming before a Korea-US summit has taken place — puts the Lee administration’s pragmatic diplomacy to the test, including its handling of the Korea-US alliance and Seoul’s relations with China and Russia,” he added.
In a previous similar case, then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye attended a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary on Sept. 3, 2015, at Tiananmen Square — becoming the first South Korean president to observe a Chinese military parade.
Park’s presence sparked significant controversy at home over its appropriateness and raised concerns in the US, as most Western leaders — including those from the US, UK, France and Germany — had declined to attend, citing political and historical sensitivities.