BEIJING: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took a selfie with Xi Jinping using a smartphone gifted to him by the Chinese leader, who had joked at their last meeting that the device might be capable of spying.
Lee posted three selfies of himself, Xi and their wives on social media platform X on Monday during his visit to Beijing.
The photos were taken with a phone the Chinese leader gave him last year, Lee said.
“A selfie with President Xi Jinping and his wife, taken with the Xiaomi I received as a gift in Gyeongju,” Lee wrote.
“Thanks to them, I got the shot of my life,” he added.
“I want to communicate more often and collaborate more closely going forward.”
The Xiaomi handset made headlines in November when Xi made a joke to Lee on the sidelines of an APEC summit in South Korea.
When Lee asked if the line of communication on the device was secure, the Chinese executive urged him to “check if there’s a backdoor” — referring to pre-installed software that could allow third-party surveillance.
The banter was a rare display of humor from the Chinese leader, who is not often seen making jokes, let alone about espionage.
During their ninety-minute summit on Monday, Xi urged Lee to join Beijing in making the “right strategic choices” in a world that is “becoming more complex and turbulent.”
Lee’s visit to China followed a US military operation in Caracas that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges – a raid condemned by Beijing and Pyongyang.
Lee’s selfie post generated a lot of interest online and was shared more than 3,400 times in the first few hours.
One user laughed: “Sir, do you know Nicolas Maduro used the same phone?”
The South Korean leader, who took office in June following the impeachment and ouster of his predecessor in a martial law declaration, has sought to improve relations with China after a year-long diplomatic freeze.
