It’s an open secret that countries spy on each other. That’s probably why world leaders almost never talk about espionage in public.
But over the weekend, it was the punchline of a joke between China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea.
The joke revolved around two cellphones Mr. Xi gave Mr. Lee — one for him, one for his wife — during their meeting in the South Korean city of Gyeongju on Saturday. The phones were manufactured by the Chinese company Xiaomi, with Korean-made displays, a spokesman for Mr. Xi said as the two leaders inspected them with news cameras rolling.
Mr. Lee picked up one of the phones, still in its box, and admired it. Then he asked how good the security was.
Mr. Xi laughed. “You can check if there’s a backdoor,” he said, referring to preinstalled software that allows a third party to monitor a cellphone. That prompted Mr. Lee to laugh and clap his hands in apparent delight.
The exchange was notable in part because Mr. Xi is rarely seen speaking off the cuff in public. It also deviated from a “sort of old-fashioned gentlemen’s agreement” in which world leaders typically pretend that covert activities aren’t happening, said John Delury, a historian of China based in Seoul.
“What’s interesting here is they’re doing it in public, but they’re not acknowledging ‘I spy on you, you spy on me,’” said Mr. Delury, the author of a book about a C.I.A. campaign in China in the 1950s. “They’re more ironically and playfully referencing the secret world of espionage and surveillance and laughing it off.”
For years, the United States and its allies have been warning that Chinese technology could be used for espionage. The United States, Australia and Britain have all banned Huawei, a Chinese technology firm, from their 5G mobile communication networks. They argue that the company is inseparable from China’s ruling Communist Party.
The first Trump administration placed Xiaomi on a blacklist and warned American companies that doing business with the maker of smartphones and electric cars could get them barred from future Pentagon contracts.
Xiaomi successfully sued the U.S. government to be removed from the blacklist, arguing that it did not have any links to the Chinese military.
When Mr. Lee met Mr. Xi on Saturday, on the sidelines of an international economic summit, he seemed to be acknowledging concerns about Chinese products and China’s surveillance capabilities, Mr. Delury said.
“But by joking about it, by using irony, ultimately he’s dismissing a lot of those concerns and saying, ‘Thank you for the phone and it’s great that Korean and Chinese companies are building it together,’” he said.
The jovial interaction reflected efforts by the two leaders to strengthen their countries’ relationship through economic collaboration. That is a challenge for South Korea, a key U.S. ally, in part because the rivalry between Washington and Beijing is growing. During a meeting last week in Gyeongju, Mr. Lee awarded President Trump South Korea’s highest decoration and a replica of an ancient gold crown.
Mr. Lee has also faced a domestic backlash from a conservative opposition party that accuses him of aligning too closely with China. His predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, raised concerns about Chinese meddling in South Korea’s elections. China has rejected the accusations.
Governments usually acknowledge spying on allies only when they’re forced to. In 2013, after Edward Snowden revealed that the United States had been monitoring the phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for over a decade, President Barack Obama promised Ms. Merkel that it would not happen again.
Mobile phones are not a common diplomatic gift because of the security concerns they bring, said Patrick F. Walsh, a professor of intelligence and security studies at Charles Sturt University in Australia,
Will Mr. Lee use the Xiaomi phones? Probably not, he said.
“I can’t imagine him saying ‘We’ve got this phone, I’ll talk to the Japanese prime minister or Washington on it,’” Mr. Walsh said. “He might gift it to a granddaughter or something.”
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
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