NARA, Japan (AP) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung arrived in Japan on Tuesday for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, aiming to improve the sometimes-strained relationship as Tokyo faces a deepening row with China.

The meeting could deliver a political win as Takaichi is seeking to shore up her power. A few months after taking office, she enjoys strong approval ratings but her party has a majority in only one of two houses of parliament. There's growing speculation that she may be planning a snap election in hopes of gaining more seats.

Summit will be held in a city known for deer and ancient architecture

Takaichi will be hosting Lee in her hometown, Nara, an ancient capital known for its deer and centuries-old Buddhist temples.

On Wednesday, she will take Lee on a tour of Horyu Temple, which includes buildings from the late 7th or early 8th century. They're some of the world’s oldest surviving wooden architecture and illustrate Japan's adoption of Buddhism via the Korean Peninsula. Lee will also meet with South Korean residents in Japan before returning home in the afternoon.

Japan’s cultural, religious and political ties to the Korean Peninsula are ancient, but in modern times their relationship has been repeatedly disrupted by disputes stemming from Japan's brutal colonial rule of Korea from 1910-1945.

Takaichi was in Nara on Monday to prepare and posted on X: “I hope to further push forward Japan’s relations with South Korea in the forward-looking way as we meet in the ancient capital of Nara with more than 1,300 years of history and longstanding cultural exchanges between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.”

The Japanese prime minister faces intensifying trade and political tension with China over a remark about Taiwan that angered Beijing days after she took office. Takaichi said that potential Chinese military action against Taiwan, the island democracy Beijing claims as its own, could justify Japanese intervention.

Trade, relations with China and alliances with the US are on the table

Tuesday's meeting will focus on trade and the challenges of China and North Korea, as well as efforts to deepen trust between the two countries.

Japan and South Korea, both key U.S. allies, must also figure out how to deal with President Donald Trump’s unpredictable diplomacy, and both countries are under U.S. pressure to increase defense spending.

Lee was in Beijing last week for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as China steps up economic and political pressure against Japan and seeks to cozy up to Seoul. During the visit, the South Korean leader told reporters that relations with Japan are as important as those with China but that South Korea's ability to broker reconciliation between its neighbors is limited.

Lee, in an interview Monday with Japan’s NHK television, noted his interest in gaining Japanese backing for South Korea's participation the 12-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. He said that would involve South Korea lifting a ban on imports from Fukushima and nearby Japanese prefectures affected by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and may take time because of health concerns among South Koreans.

Lee also said his country wants to cooperate with Japan on security under a trilateral framework that includes the U.S., but “what’s really important is the issue of deep mutual trust.”

Leaders have set aside differences to cooperate on mutual challenges

Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have begun improving in recent years in the face of shared challenges such as growing China-U.S. competition and North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.

There were early concerns about Takaichi's ability to work with Lee, fed by her reputation as a security hawk and an assumption by some that the left-wing South Korean leader would tilt toward North Korea and China. But so far, both leaders have sought to set aside their differences.

While the two leaders are expected to avoid discussing their historical disputes, media reports say they may discuss possible humanitarian cooperation in the ongoing effort to recover remains from a former undersea mining site in western Japan where 180 workers, mostly Korean forced laborers, were killed in a 1942 accident.

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Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo.