Drumstick diplomacy for Japan and South Korea as leaders bang out K-pop hits

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung (left) and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (right) smash out some K-pop hits after their talks in Nara, central Japan on January 13, 2026. (AP via CNN Newsource)

The leaders of Japan and South Korea staged a surprise drum session on their first day of talks in Japan, smashing out K-pop hits in a loud and unconventional display of diplomacy between a self-confessed metalhead and an aspiring novice.

Japanese Prime Minster Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung swapped their suits for matching blue tracksuits Tuesday to bang out chart-topping tunes by some of South Korea’s biggest cultural exports.

Together, they tackled BTS’s “Dynamite” and the hit track “Golden” from Netflix’s blockbuster “KPop Demon Hunters,” which just won Best Original Song at the Golden Globes – on six-piece kits made by Pearl, the famed Japanese drum company.

For Lee, it was a dream come true.

“I achieved my lifelong dream today. Playing the drum has been my dream since I was a child,” he told Takaichi, according to the South Korean government.

Takaichi’s love for drums goes way back, and she planned the surprise for her guest after he told her at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea last year that “drumming was his dream,” she wrote on X.

Lee told Takaichi it was “not easy to keep up with the beats,” but added in a subsequent post on X that he hoped both South Korea and Japan would be able to get closer “just as we respected each other’s differences and tuned to each other’s rhythm.”

Pragmatic diplomacy

The meeting is the third between the two leaders since Takaichi took office in October 2025, as Japan’s first female prime minister.

They met in her home region of Nara in central Japan to discuss a range of issues from industrial supply chains and artificial intelligence to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and cooperation with the United States.

“We concurred on the importance of Korea-Japan and Korea-US-Japan cooperation for the sake of regional peace and stability, given the rapidly changing international situation,” Lee said in a joint statement.

Relations between the two countries have been warming in recent years as their leaders focus on economic and security issues over historical strains resulting from Japan’s colonial occupation of South Korea in the early 20th century.

But Lee’s approach has been more balanced than that of his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, who brushed aside historical issues to focus on the North Korean threat.

Since coming to office in June, Lee has struck a more pragmatic tone and in August made it clear that he sees Japan as “an indispensable partner.”

Tuesday’s drumstick diplomacy also extended to the exchange of gifts. Takaichi gave Lee a pair of drumsticks engraved with his name. Lee reciprocated with, among other things, a pair of drumsticks embellished with lacquerware and a drum set by Korean brand Markers.

He also gave Takaichi’s husband a handcrafted lacquered set of tableware – an idea stemming from her husband’s pledge to cook, when he proposed – and a Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, a device for him to track his health.

Lee has developed a reputation for giving world leaders thoughtful gifts. Last year, he gave US President Donald Trump a replica gold crown, modeled on those worn by rulers in the ancient Silla kingdom, and he gifted Chinese leader Xi Jinping a wooden board for the strategy game Go.

By Chris Lau, Gawon Bae and Yumi Asada