US President-elect Joe Biden, who visited the DMZ as Vice President in 2013. yunhap news-National Diplomatic Director Kim Joon-hyung expressed his appreciation somewhat unusually to Victor Cha, a professor at Georgetown University in the United States, at a discussion meeting last month.
It was thanks to Professor Cha’s request for a’bold political strategy’ for Biden’s next administration’s North Korea policy in a Foreign Affairs article by the American Diplomatic Association.
Professor Cha criticized both the Obama administration’s’strategic patience’ and the Trump administration’s’top-down diplomacy’, recommending a step-by-step approach starting with freezing the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
Professor Cha, the second generation of Korean Americans, is a strong hawk who also criticized the Kim Dae-jung administration’s sunshine policy. Basically, they strongly distrust the hereditary regime in North Korea.
However, since I said words that could be in context with the step-by-step and simultaneous solutions that North Korea demands, it would be an opposition for the Korean government to mediate the US-North Korea dialogue again.
Professor Cha’s changed attitude seems to have nothing to do with the Biden government’s policy toward North Korea.
Jake Sullivan (left) talking to Hillary Clinton in October 2015. yunhap news-Secretary of State Tony Blincoln and White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are putting weight on a phased North Korean nuclear solution unlike the Trump administration. It is a position that the Obama administration’s diplomatic policy of the Iranian Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA) can be applied to North Korea as well.
Candidate Blincoln said in January 2019 that “the possibility of complete denuclearization of North Korea in the near future is very slim,” and that we should start with arms control and gradual disarmament.
Nominee Sullivan said in September last year, “In the long term, the goal is to denuclearize North Korea, but in the short term, it is necessary to focus diplomatic efforts on reducing North Korea’s nuclear proliferation.”
However, for Biden’s Foreign Affairs and Security Team, the Gangkyung Group who opposes such disarmament and non-proliferationism is also difficult.
One expert said, “There are two factions in the Biden administration (related to North Korea policy), one that should be resolved in stages, and one that needs to be resolved in stages, and one that needs to be resolved in stages. These are a kind of Messianicism that says that the Kim dynasty should disappear whether or not North Korea puts its nuclear weapons down or not. I have,” he said.
Jeong Bak (Park Jeong-Hyun) Korean Chair at Brookings Research Institute. yunhap news-Many of the experts in Korean peninsula issues have this tendency, and due to the nature of the field, there are many Korean people.
Representatives include Jeong Bak (Park Jeong-hyun), a Korean seat at Brookings Research Institute, and Sumi Terry, a senior researcher at the US Institute for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), and Su Kim Rand Research Institute, who have been selected as the institutional review team of the Biden administration’s acquisition committee.
In the case of researcher Su Kim, a former analyst at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), even the recent remarks made by Chairman Song Young-gil, Chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Transportation, are strong enough to criticize that it is “questioning the US position.”
One diplomatic source said, “In general, local experts are moderate and functionalists (disarmament and non-proliferation) have a strong position, but in the North Korean issue, the opposite is true.” With the inauguration of the Biden government, the line struggle in the diplomatic and security advancement seems inevitable.
Candidate for Secretary of State Tony Blincoln. yunhap news-Of course, it can be said that the influence of the candidate Blincoln Secretary of State who focuses on a step-by-step solution is relatively large, but it is difficult to predict.
The atmosphere in the United States may change depending on the North Korean provocations, and the North Korean human rights issue following the recent controversy over the so-called ‘Prohibition on Warfare Act’ is also a variable.
Most of all, candidate Blincoln is not very different from other hard-liners in that he is basically a hard-liner against North Korea, reflecting the reality of the advanced North Korean nuclear program.
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