Seoul seeks to further Trump's legacy on North Korea under Biden administration
South Korea will seek to advance Donald Trump's diplomatic legacy regarding the denuclearisation of North Korea, President Moon Jae-in said on Monday, even as the US presidential election outcome left the country in relief.
While an opinion poll showed South Korean citizens backed Joe Biden to Trump in an overwhelming margin of four to one, the government has favoured Trump's approach towards Pyongyang, which saw him meeting leader Kim Jong-un three times.
Moon said at a meeting with his top aides that Seoul would ensure there was no "vacuum" in diplomatic efforts to "strengthen the South Korea-US alliance and progress in the Korea peace process".
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"I will do my utmost to make sure the precious achievements made together under the Trump administration be well succeeded and further developed by the next government," he said.
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said she did not believe Washington would rewind its strategy on North Korea.
"Judging from what several people in Biden's campaign say publicly, I don't think they mean (a new government under Biden) would return to the strategic patience of the past," Kang said, according to Yonhap news agency.
Under the "strategic patience" strategy, former president Barack Obama essentially ignored North Korea, insisting that the North had to first make concrete steps towards denuclearisation before Washington considered dialogue with Pyongyang.
Trump employed a different tack, sending multiple letters and speaking with Kim at three summits, although critics dismissed them as "photo ops" that produced little results.
Choi Kang, Vice President of the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, described Biden's victory as "hardly welcome news" to the Moon administration. "It has invested so much in the success of Trump's top-down diplomacy," he said.
A key Biden aide recently attempted to soothe such concerns in Seoul.
"Joe Biden is not President Obama, and the world is different now four years later because the North Korean nuclear programme has moved on," Brian McKeon told Yonhap news agency last month.
Professor Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul shared the view.
Over the past four years, Kim has further solidified his grip on power in all sectors and the North's nuclear development now poses a direct threat to the US, including what appeared to be a new ICBM rolled out last month.
"I don't think Kim Jong-un will attempt to test Biden by staging major provocative acts, such as long- or middle-range missile tests, which would be tantamount to Kim himself reneging on what he has agreed at the summits with Trump," Yang said.
"However, we can't rule out the possibility of the North committing a highly provocative act should the US mobilise strategic weapons, such as stealth bombers and nuclear submarines, in its annual military drill with the South in March," he said.
In his interview with Yonhap, McKeon highlighted the importance of doing the groundwork before a meeting.
"Any meeting would have to be preceded by some serious diplomatic work at a lower level, rather than just granting a meeting between the two leaders, because, as you know, any complicated negotiation on a challenge like the North Korean nuclear issue, you just can't expect two top leaders to do that in a one- or two-hour meeting," McKeon said.
Still, the long-time Biden adviser said the US president-elect would meet Kim if progress was possible.
"I think he would be willing to meet with (Kim) if it was part of an actual strategy that moves us forward on the denuclearisation objective," he said, adding that Trump "started with a leader meeting rather than having a detailed strategy to get to our objectives".
US President Donald Trump's three meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were criticised by analysts as mere 'photo ops'. Photo: Reuters alt=US President Donald Trump's three meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were criticised by analysts as mere 'photo ops'. Photo: Reuters
In an editorial published by Yonhap last month, Biden also wrote that he would engage in "principled diplomacy and keep pressing toward a denuclearised North Korea and a unified Korean peninsula", hinting that he was willing to align with Moon's agenda for peace settlement on the Korean peninsula.
Under the Moon administration, the US and South Korea have curtailed joint military exercises that are seen by Pyongyang as nuclear war drills, which the North traditionally responds to with missile tests and other provocative acts.
The two Koreas are still technically at war as the Korean war ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
The Moon government has pushed for a declaration of the war's end, a centrepiece of Moon's agreement with Kim at their first summit in April 2018.
But no such peace declaration materialised as talks between Pyongyang and Washington faltered due to differences over terms of the North's denuclearisation.
In his final debate before the election, Biden accused Trump of legitimising North Korea and cosying up to Kim, calling Kim a "thug". He also said he would maintain pressure on China to help rein in its communist ally if he won the vote.
Trump said the US would have been at war with the North if not for his diplomacy with Pyongyang.
North Korea, whose state KCNA state news agency called Biden a "rabid dog" last year, has kept silent on the US presidential election as their propaganda mills usually keep the appearance of indifference towards elections in enemy states.
Meanwhile, the South Korean public has largely welcomed Biden's victory over Trump, who rode roughshod over diplomatic niceties and protocols as he sought to address trade issues and pushed for a five-fold increase in South Korea's cost-sharing bill to station 28,500 US troops in the country.
"Hatred against Trump among Koreans was so great, as in many other countries, and there was a collective sigh of relief at Biden's victory," Choi Kang said.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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