The leaders of Japan and South Korea had spent hours discussing weighty issues like nuclear weapons, critical minerals and economic security. Now they just wanted to jam.
It was Tuesday night in Nara, an ancient capital of Japan where Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was hosting President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea for a summit meeting. After a joint news conference, Ms. Takaichi, an amateur heavy metal drummer, invited Mr. Lee, who had no drumming experience, to join her for an impromptu performance.
Inside a hotel conference room, the two leaders sat at adjacent drum sets and began rocking out to K-pop hits like “Dynamite” by BTS and “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters.” They wore matching blue track jackets with their names written in cursive across the front, like members of a 1970s band. An audience of staff members provided faithful applause throughout the session, which lasted about 20 minutes.
“It’s hard to match the rhythm, isn’t it?” Mr. Lee said at one point, according to a video of the session posted online.
“No, no, no!” Ms. Takaichi responded. “You did it well! You were amazing!”
The performance was meant to symbolize warming ties between Japan and South Korea at a time of deep geopolitical and economic uncertainty. Both countries are grappling with the erratic foreign policy of the United States, a major ally. And they are each dealing with China’s efforts to expand its economic and military power throughout Asia.
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South Korea and Japan have long struggled to build a close relationship. The two countries have been driven apart by the legacy of World War II and Japan’s brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
At first blush, Ms. Takaichi and Mr. Lee, who both took office last year, did not seem like natural allies. Ms. Takaichi is a hard-line conservative who has argued that Japan’s World War II atrocities, including in the Korean Peninsula, have been overstated. Mr. Lee represents a party that has long been skeptical of closer ties with Japan.
But the two leaders have built a genial relationship over the past few months, and their jam session in Nara, Ms. Takaichi’s hometown, seemed to signal that they did not intend to let history get in the way of a closer partnership. Mr. Lee’s visit, which concluded on Wednesday, included a visit to Horyuji, a Buddhist temple that features architecture and artifacts influenced by Korean culture.
Mira Rapp-Hooper, a partner at The Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm, called the musical performance “a really charming and quite savvy play by both leaders.” She said it reflected the reality that the “center of gravity in both countries has moved toward a more centrist position of maintaining this partnership.”
“They understand that Japan and South Korea are now vital partners,” said Ms. Rapp-Hooper, a former Biden administration official. “The fact that this is happening as the basic foundations of the international system are shifting beneath their feet is all the more remarkable.”
Japan’s relationship with South Korea has become even more crucial since November, when China initiated a series of reprisals to punish Japan over its expression of support for Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its territory.
Mr. Lee is trying to maintain good relations with both China and Japan. He had a similarly cordial visit to Beijing last week, snapping a selfie with China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
At their meeting on Tuesday, Ms. Takaichi and Mr. Lee promised to work closely on a range of issues, including cracking down on organized crime and streamlining supply chains. They vowed to uphold a three-way security pact in the Pacific with the United States, which was set up in 2023.
The origin of the jam session in Nara can be traced to the first meeting between Mr. Lee and Ms. Takaichi in October at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea.
At the time, Ms. Takaichi was garnering international attention for being the first woman elected prime minister in Japan. She was also a subject of intrigue because she had an alter ego as a heavy metal drummer. She is a fan of Iron Maiden and Deep Purple; has played in bands; and keeps an electronic drum set at home.
Mr. Lee told Ms. Takaichi that his lifelong dream was to play the drums, according to a post by Ms. Takaichi on X. So for Mr. Lee’s state visit, she planned a surprise: she would invite him to pick up the drumsticks and play together.
After Mr. Lee’s debut on Tuesday, Ms. Takaichi had high praise.
“Mr. President mastered playing the drums in just five or 10 minutes,” she said.
Mr. Lee said the performance at first “felt a bit awkward, but as we kept playing, the sounds came together as one.”
“We were a bit off beat, but tried to stay in sync,” he wrote on X. “Similarly, we’ll work together to build a future-oriented relationship between our countries.”
Hisako Ueno contributed reporting from Tokyo, and Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul.
Javier C. Hernández is the Tokyo bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Japan and the region. He has reported from Asia for much of the past decade, previously serving as China correspondent in Beijing.
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