Biden “Kim Jong-un Gang, North Korea Nuclear Deterioration” … North Korea-US Negotiations Appear Difficult

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, is holding a press conference at the White House on the 5th (local time) and reveals his position on the situation of the count. [AFP=연합뉴스]

The entrance of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden to the White House became influential. The international community is also drawing attention to the new policies on the Korean peninsula that it will introduce. American policy on the Korean peninsula is largely divided in two. It is the North Korean nuclear issue and the relationship between the United States and Korea. Some say North Korea’s nuclear issue, which has lasted 30 years, is still ongoing, and that the ROK-US alliance has been distanced somewhat by the Moon Jae-in administration. The goal of the new Korean Peninsula policy that Biden will propose is to lead to the denuclearization of North Korea and further solidify the alliance with South Korea.

It is early to conclude, but the prospects for North Korea’s nuclear negotiations are not very rosy. This atmosphere can be seen in Biden’s assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. On the 22nd of last month, he criticized President Kim as a dictator, calling him a “bully” in a televised debate about the candidates for the presidential election. “Despite the three summit meetings between North Korea and the United States for television, we still have not received a single specific promise from North Korea.” The situation got worse ”. It is argued that President Donald Trump’s North Korean nuclear negotiations were futile.

As such, Biden’s negotiations with North Korea are expected to be quite different from Trump’s. To differentiate it from the Trump administration, it is expected not to be a ‘top-down’ method, but rather a ‘bottom-up’ method in which the work level negotiates and publishes the results and is approved. It was already negotiated when the 1994 North Geneva agreement and the United States and the joint declaration of 19 September were drafted.

The prospect of the North Korea-US summit, which was a Trump-style breakthrough, is not great either. Biden stated that, as a condition of the North Korea-United States summit, “(President Kim) must agree to reduce his nuclear capabilities to denuclearize North Korea.” In this comment, Biden’s focus is denuclearization. If Biden wanted a simple reduction in nuclear capabilities, this would be something President Kim would appreciate. This is because the simple reduction of nuclear capacity is an agenda that arises only from nuclear disarmament negotiations between nuclear powers rather than denuclearization negotiations with North Korea.

Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden held a press conference in Wilmington, Delaware on the 5th (local time) and revealed his position on the count situation. [AP=연합뉴스]

Therefore, the North Korean nuclear negotiations that Biden envisions will be a process of verification and confirmation of the fulfillment of President Kim’s faithful commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea. It can be more complicated than the Trump method, where leaders meet first to agree on principles and then leave detailed negotiations to the task force. This is because progress in practical negotiations itself will not be easy without concessions from both sides, in a situation where it has already been confirmed that there is a large gap between North Korea and the United States on the denuclearization solution.

There is a possibility that the Biden government’s demands on North Korea will become stricter in the future. What President Trump called for at the second summit between North Korea and the United States in February last year is said to be “the closure of five nuclear facilities, including Yongbyon.” President Kim did not accept this and the negotiations broke down. There are many analyzes that the Biden administration will want at least more than Trump’s demands in future negotiations. It seems that only if North Korea agrees to this can various appeasement measures be reviewed, including the partial lifting of sanctions against North Korea and the North Korea-US summit.

Biden has been vice president of the Barack Obama administration for eight years, but it is unlikely that he would adhere to the policy of “strategic patience” toward North Korea at the time. Given that there is criticism of this policy that “they only gave North Korea time for nuclear and missile development,” Biden needs to differentiate himself from the Obama administration. The environment surrounding North Korea’s nuclear issue has also changed significantly. North Korea claims it has an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the entire United States and, in fact, launched the Hwaseong-15 in November 2017.

With such advanced nuclear and missile technologies as collateral, North Korea’s strategy toward the United States can be further strengthened. In this case, tensions between North Korea and the United States could rise significantly, as in the first days of President Trump’s inauguration. Even more so if North Korea provokes militarily. North Korea is likely to hold low-intensity armed demonstrations to occupy an advantageous position in the negotiations between the United States and North Korea in the first half of next year.

There is also another advance variable. Like the Democratic Party of the past, which traditionally emphasized human rights, the atmosphere could be even worse if the Biden administration pushed the North Korean human rights issue as a means of pressure. In Joya, Washington, “in the first half of next year, when the US needs to formulate a new strategy toward North Korea, it is difficult to advance the negotiations between North Korea and the US. Rather, it is an analysis. that we must hope that the relationship between the two countries does not deteriorate and remains as it is “.

On the other hand, the issue of the distribution of defense costs and the withdrawal of American troops in Korea, which were problems in relations between the ROK and the United States, will be resolved with relative ease. It is noted that Biden, who values ​​alliance and cooperation, will not unreasonably increase his share of defense costs in the wake of the reduction of US forces in Korea. Meanwhile, as US-China relations have deteriorated enough to be called the New Cold War, the US demand to engage in anti-China routes is expected to strengthen.

The Korean government’s concern is that even after Biden was elected and took office in January next year, it is difficult for the negotiations between North Korea and the United States to proceed properly for several months. This is because it takes time for the new United States government to formulate a new diplomatic and security line, such as that of the Secretary of State and Defense and the White House National Security Advisor, and establish a new strategy towards North Korea. The longer this period, the narrower the space and time in which Moon Jae-in’s administration can play a role. Thus, there is a possibility that the Moon Jae-in administration, which ends in May 2022, will take a more active and independent move towards North Korea based on the ‘driver theory’.

The worst situation is that the Biden administration restarts the North Korean nuclear negotiations from the beginning in accordance with the new policy towards North Korea. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said on the 5th in the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Transport Affairs of the National Assembly that “I do not believe that the achievements of the last three years, the agreements and wills made publicly by the governments of North Korea and Korea, and American leaders can return to their origin. ” Of concern. The South Korean government has fallen behind in a new task of coordinating North Korean policies with Biden, who dismisses the North Korean-US summit as “for television.”

Reporter Choi Ik-jae [email protected]