The Tuman River as seen from Fangchuan Commentary Tower in China. Within the distance, previous the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, the river results in the East Sea. For 16.93 kilometers, the river kinds the border between North Korea and Russia, excluding China from entry to the ocean. (Lee Je-hun/Hankyoreh)
The 4 main inter-Korean and worldwide cooperation initiatives that President Lee Jae Myung requested for China’s partnership and coordination on throughout final week’s summit are noteworthy in that they transcend bilateral cooperation between the Koreas, as a substitute involving multilateral cooperation.
It’s notably value drawing consideration to the truth that the initiatives proposed by Lee deal with increasing cooperation with China and Russia to lend momentum to inter-Korean cooperation, as seen within the Larger Tumen Initiative. The proposal seems to be a two-pronged technique that without delay seeks to shift the regional order in Northeast Asia from certainly one of battle to certainly one of cooperation whereas discovering a breakthrough in inter-Korean relations.
Excessive-speed railway that hyperlinks Seoul, Pyongyang and Beijing
The very first thing that Lee harassed to President Xi Jinping throughout their summit was inter-Korean and worldwide cooperation. This initiative is rooted in agreements made between then-President Moon Jae-in and North Korean chief Kim Jong-un in 2018 and in Moon’s consensus with then-Chinese language Premier Li Keqiang.
Throughout his summit with Moon in 2018, Kim Jong-un confirmed explicit curiosity within the thought of the Trans-Korea Railway. This newest proposal builds on that basis by increasing the venture to incorporate China. As an initiative led by South Korea and China, the plan is to influence North Korea to affix to strengthen the foundations for inter-Korean cooperation and cooperation between Seoul, Pyongyang and Beijing.
Well being care cooperation
The humanitarian nature of this initiative means it might doubtlessly be exempt from sanctions, whereas additionally taking part in into a selected curiosity of Kim Jong-un’s: public well being.
Kim referred to as 2025 the start of North Korea’s “public well being revolution,” citing the development of Pyongyang Normal Hospital and native hospitals within the counties of Kangdong, Kusong and Ryonggang. Kim has vowed to assemble 20 metropolis and county hospitals yearly beginning in 2026.
In a report back to the president on Dec. 19, 2025, South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young mentioned the ministry would “pursue the creation of a world belief fund to safe funding for complete well being care cooperation initiatives, together with infectious illness response and modernizing county-level hospitals.”
The selection to create a world belief fund, a type of multilateral cooperation, seems designed to each decrease resistance by Pyongyang whereas overcoming the barrier posed by sanctions.
Wonsan-Kalma “peace tourism”
This initiative was designed with two details in thoughts: tourism, in precept, will not be topic to UN Safety Council sanctions in opposition to North Korea, and the Wonsan-Kalma vacationer space is certainly one of Kim Jong-un’s key nationwide initiatives.
Beneath Kim Jong-un’s management, North Korea constructed lodging services with a capability for as much as 20,000 individuals per day within the Wonsan Kalma vacationer zone. The zone opened to the general public on July 1, 2025, however failure to herald vacationers from locations apart from North Korea or Russia has meant very gradual enterprise for the resorts.
Kim has pledged to develop the world right into a “world-class coastal resort metropolis,” so he’s determined for a gradual stream of incoming vacationers that can alleviate the pile of debt the resort’s development has stacked up.
In the identical report, Chung pledged to “prime the pump to revive inter-Korean cooperation by means of Wonsan-Kalma peace tourism,” which will probably be approached by means of three phases: permitting abroad ethnic Koreans to go to their homeland, stopover tourism between South and North Korea and China, and tourism by South Koreans.
Larger Tumen Initiative
Primarily based on the Tumen River Space Improvement Programme, shaped underneath the United Nations Improvement Programme in 1991, the GTI is a cooperative inter-government framework for Northeast Asia that’s wealthy in historical past.
South Korea, China, Russia and Mongolia are official members, whereas North Korea formally left after its second spherical of nuclear weapons testing in 2009. Nonetheless, North Korea has a everlasting consultant inside the management of the GTI’s secretariat. The mouth of the Tumen — often known as the Tuman River in Korean — is the place the borders of North Korea, China and Russia meet.
In joint statements, China and Russia have agreed to cooperate to develop the Tumen area. Following the North Korea-Russia summit in June 2024, Pyongyang and Moscow have been developing a cross-border highway bridge over the Tumen.
Towards this backdrop, Lee’s clarification of the GTI as part of inter-Korean and multilateral worldwide cooperation and request for Xi to cooperate and play a mediating function is a strategic transfer that appears on the greater image past inter-Korean relations.
Lee’s request was not solely a proposal to revive multilateral cooperation that will enable South Korea into the communal courtyard of North Korea, China, and Russia; it’s additionally a pursuit of constructive change in South Korea-Russia relations, which have chilled since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
By Lee Je-hun, senior workers author
Please direct questions or feedback to [english@hani.co.kr]
