KB News DeskLee receives former president in Cheong Wa Dae for the first time since inauguration
President Lee Jae Myung said South Korea will push to revive peace policy for the Korean Peninsula launched under Moon Jae-in’s administration, as he met the former president over lunch in Cheong Wa Dae on Wednesday.
It was the first occasion in which Lee formally received a former South Korean president since his inauguration in June last year.
Over a lunch of chicken porridge with ginseng, Korean herbs, braised beef, Korean-style croaker soup and bibimbap, Lee and Moon discussed policy directives that had been discontinued by former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who tended to take a confrontational stance against North Korea.
Among them were the Moon-led initiatives that sought reconciliation with North Korea and peace on the Korean Peninsula, as well as policy to encourage South Koreans to build renewable energy infrastructure, such as solar panels.
Lee said he would work to put them back on track.
“The achievements you made during your five-year term have been severely damaged. In the field of diplomacy, national security, inter-Korean relations, the economy and culture, the country has been broken in so many areas,” Lee said.
“Now I am in the process of restoring the damage. … I have been pushing myself to restore them.”
The South’s military pressure on the North, and Yoon’s coinciding attempt to instil martial law in December 2024 had dealt a considerable blow to inter-Korean relations, Lee told Moon.
“As I meet foreign leaders face-to-face, I get to realize that the damage on inter-Korean relations has become truly incurable,” Lee said. “This hostility and confrontational mindset (of Pyongyang) does not seem to be resolved through our efforts for a year or two,”
Lee pledged to ceaselessly pursue policies influenced by former liberal administrations such as the Sunshine Policy and the peace process on the Korean Peninsula for the peaceful coexistence of the two Koreas.
“I will make sure these will carry on,” Lee said.
Lee also hailed Moon’s signature policy to promote the construction of solar power panels. This, said Lee, laid the groundwork for the country’s announced 800 trillion won ($517.9 billion) investment into building semiconductor chip factories in the southwest.
As Moon thanked Lee for his administration’s decision to announce the project, Lee responded, “It is thanks to you because you nurtured the renewable energy industry there.”
“Without that level of infrastructure, it would have been difficult to start anew now,” Lee added. “But the (Yoon administration) had treated the renewable energy industry expansion with hostility through a series of suspicions and reckless investigation into it.”
The meeting comes amid internal power struggles in the liberal bloc. Pro-Lee factions appear to be at odds with those sympathizing with Moon, most of whom are aligned with Rep. Jung Chung-rae who is seeking to rerun for the Democratic Party chairship in August.
According to Hong Ihk-pyo, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, the meeting between the two had been arranged since Lee’s inauguration last year, denying speculation that the meeting was haphazardly scheduled as the liberal party’s convention is a month ahead.
Against this backdrop, the pursuit of unity among the liberals is the crucial task, Lee said.
“Fundamentally, once we take power, we must represent everyone and engage in politics for the benefit of everyone. Internal unity would be extremely important,” Lee said.
His remarks were in response to Moon’s request that there should be no place for infighting between factions.
“In order to achieve national integration, I think the starting point of it is unity within the party,” Moon told Lee, calling it a “crucial task for the Lee administration to move forward.”
