After winning South Korea's presidential election, Yoon Suk Yeol is facing a quickly growing North Korean nuclear threat — and with few easy choices to deal with it. Pyongyang often attempts to rattle new administrations with major weapons demonstrations.
But despite Yoon’s desire to do something different from the dovish government of Moon, there’s no “silver bullet” policy his administration could adopt for dealing with North Korea, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University.
North Korea has conducted nine rounds of missile launches in 2022 alone, with signs of more to come. State media said Friday that Kim Jong Un instructed officials to expand a satellite launch facility to fire a variety of rockets. His comments followed a pair of missile firings in recent weeks that the U.S. and South Korean militaries linked with the development of a new intercontinental ballistic missile system that could be tested at full range soon.
Yoon, surrounded by foreign policy advisers who have served under Seoul’s previous conservative governments, has called for maintaining sanctions and pressure until the North takes meaningful steps to wind down its weapons program. However, the Biden administration may not be able to support all of Yoon’s demands and could seek a more assertive role from South Korea in the alliance that goes beyond responding to North Korea.
“South Korea has reached a point where it has to make a choice one way or another and be willing to pay the price for that choice,” Park said. “South Korea just can’t afford to put everything on the line and strengthen its alliance with Washington unconditionally to confront Beijing.”
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