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 in 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 photographs were taken with a phone given to him by the Chinese leader 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 received the vaccine of my life,” he added.
“I will communicate more frequently and collaborate more closely in the future.”
The Xiaomi phone made headlines in November when Xi made a joke at Lee on the sidelines of an APEC summit in South Korea.
When Lee asked if the device’s communication line was secure, the Chinese leader urged him to “check if there is a backdoor,” referring to pre-installed software that could allow third-party monitoring.
The jokes were 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 decisions” 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 Nicolás Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug trafficking charges, a raid condemned by Beijing and Pyongyang.
Lee’s selfie post sparked widespread interest online and was shared more than 3,400 times in the first few hours.
One user joked: “Sir, do you know that Nicolás Maduro used the same phone?”
The South Korean leader, who took office in June following the impeachment and removal of his predecessor over a declaration of martial law, has sought to improve ties with China after years of a deep diplomatic freeze.
