`Who is South Korea’s newly elected president Yoon Suk-yeol and what are his plans?
Seoul: Threatening a pre-emptive strike, swiftly responding to missile tests, and telling “rude boy” leader Kim Jong-un to behave: South Korea’s next president looks set to get tough on the nuclear-armed North, analysts say.
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For the last five years Seoul has pursued a policy of engagement with Pyongyang, brokering high-level summits between Kim and then-US president Donald Trump while reducing joint US military drills the North sees as provocative.
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For president-elect S. Korea's new president Yoon Suk-yeol – who won a close election by a razor-thin margin yesterday – this “subservient” approach has been a manifest failure.
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The outgoing administration of President Moon Jae-in “volunteered to play middleman between the US and North Korea but was dumped by both in the end,” Yoon said in a pre-election Facebook post.
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Since the start of the year, Pyongyang has conducted a record-breaking nine weapons tests, including of banned hypersonic and medium range ballistic missiles.
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After the North test-fired what it claimed was a reconnaissance satellite component on Saturday – Seoul said it was a disguised ballistic missile – Yoon, 61, said the youthful Kim needed to be taken in hand.
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“If you give me a chance, I will teach him some manners,” he said.
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On the campaign trail, he said Kim was a “rude boy”, and promised that once he was in power, he would make the North Korean leader “snap out of it”.
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The former prosecutor has threatened a pre-emptive strike on the North “if necessary” – something analysts say is wildly unrealistic and dangerous.
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Even so, Yoon vowed to “sternly deal with the North’s illegal and irrational acts,” in his first comments as president-elect.
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“Under Yoon, we’ll probably see efforts to reset inter-Korean relations,” Soo Kim of the RAND Corporation said.
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Instead of dialogue and engagement, she said, Yoon will take a harder line, having already called for more joint drills with the US.
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“It’s a departure from the Moon administration’s prioritisation of inter-Korean engagement, to say the least,” she added.
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The “one-way love” displayed under Moon will come to an end, said Professor Park Won-gon of Ewha Womans University.
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“Yoon will certainly want to put the issue of denuclearisation in the agenda,” said Park, in contrast to the more piecemeal diplomacy pursued by his liberal predecessor.
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“It’s highly likely that North Korea will say no.”
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Yoon has even suggested buying an additional THAAD missile system from the US to counter the North – despite risks that it could prompt new economic retaliation from China, Seoul’s biggest trade partner.
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“Seoul must also retool its complex relationship with Beijing,” Yoon said in a policy statement in Foreign Affairs last month. — AFP
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