U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung as he receives a gift of a gold crown and an award of the Grand Order of Mugunghwa during a ceremony at the Gyeongju National Museum, in South Korea, on Oct. 29.Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press
Welcoming U.S. President Donald Trump for a state visit last week, South Korean leader Lee Jae Myung presented him with the country’s highest civilian honour, along with a replica golden crown measuring nearly half-a-metre high.
Though some in the U.S. criticized the latter gift as tone deaf, given recent “No Kings” protests across the country, Mr. Trump was charmed, saying the crown was “truly beautiful.”
Mr. Lee’s choice of gift was also a deliberate nod to Gyeongju, the city in which the two men met, which hosted this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit. The APEC gathering wrapped up on Saturday.
Little known outside of South Korea, Gyeongju is the seat of the ancient Silla dynasty, 57 BC to 935 AD, the first kingdom to unify what is now known as the Korean Peninsula.
Today, this city of 240,000 is still dotted with historical monuments, temples, and dramatic burial mounds, including Geumgwanchong, a tomb where the bejeweled golden crown that inspired Mr. Trump’s gift was originally discovered in 1921.
A burial mound in Gyeongju, South Korea.
Inside a burial mound where a golden crown from the Silla dynasty was first discovered.James Griffiths/The Globe and Mail
According to UNESCO, at its height in the eighth and ninth centuries, after the Silla unified most of Korea, Gyeongju may have housed as many as 900,000 residents, suggesting it was as prosperous as contemporary Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) or Baghdad.
The Silla dynasty lasted almost a thousand years until the kingdom fractured into several warring states, and the peninsula was not unified again until under the Goryeo in the tenth century, from which the name “Korea” derives.
The pinnacle of the Silla era was marked by great wealth and strong trade and cultural links with other Asian civilizations, including the Tang Dynasty in what is now China and the Islamic Empire. When Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh visited Silla during the ninth century, he noted the kingdom’s “pleasant living conditions” and abundance of gold.
A golden crown and jewellery displayed in a museum in Gyeongju.James Griffiths/The Globe and Mail
“Silla buried an extraordinary amount of pure gold artifacts in its tombs,” You Hong-jun, director of the National Museum of Korea, writes in a recent book. “The total weight of gold unearthed from Geumgwanchong alone amounts to 7.5 kilograms.”
This may have made a Silla crown an obvious gift for Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Lee noted has a “taste for gold.”
The choice of Gyeongju as host city for APEC was less straightforward. A quaint, sleepy city full of coffee shops, restaurants and historical sights, Gyeongju nevertheless lacks an international airport or the type of high-end hotels visiting international delegations have come to expect.
Mr. Lee inherited the decision from his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol – who was impeached in April in the wake of an attempted self-coup late last year – after Gyeongju won out over more established conference destinations like Incheon, on the outskirts of Seoul.
Gyeongju hosted the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, which wrapped up on Saturday.Ahn Young-joon/The Associated Press
Indeed, in the run-up to this year’s summit, there were fears that Gyeongju might not have enough rooms, and officials had to urge hoteliers and short-term rental hosts not to give into the temptation to price gouge.
Welcoming APEC has also tested local residents’ patience with sporadic demonstrations and frequent road closings that even non-drivers could not ignore, as the authorities co-opted a public-safety alert system – typically used to warn of natural disasters – to announce them to every phone in the city.
APEC, however, has been a great success for Mr. Lee, who is currently riding high in terms of domestic approval. Nor could Canadian visitors to Gyeongju complain about its relative remoteness, given Ottawa chose Kananaskis, high in the Albertan Rockies and almost 100 kilometres from the nearest major airport, as the location for its recent G7 summit.
Still, China is taking no chances as it assumes the APEC presidency. Next year’s meeting, it was announced Saturday, will be held in the megacity of Shenzhen, population 17 million.