S. Korea candidate leery of U.S. aims
He feels boxed in on anti-missile setup
SEONGNAM, South Korea — The liberal front-runner in South Korea’s presidential elections has distinctly different ideas from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on how to deal with North Korea — potentially complicating efforts to punish Kim Jong Un’s regime.
Moon Jae-in is also a candidate who fears that the United States government has been acting to box him in on an American missile-defense system and circumvent South Korea’s democratic process.
“I don’t believe the U.S. has the intention [to influence our election], but I do have some reservations,” Moon said in an interview.
A 64-year-old former human-rights lawyer who was chief of staff to former progressive President Roh Moo-hyun, Moon has a commanding lead in the polls ahead of elections next Tuesday. He is now regularly attracting twice the support rate of his closest rival, centrist Ahn Cheol-soo.
The winner of the election replaces Park Geun-hye, who was impeached in March and is now on trial on bribery charges. Because Park was dismissed from office, the winner immediately will become president, without the usual transition period.
With Moon pledging to review the Park government’s decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system, the U.S. military has acted swiftly to get it up and running. This has sparked widespread criticism that the U.S. is trying to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Moon to reverse it.
The final components for the system were taken onto the site in the middle of the night last week, triggering protests, and the system became operational Monday. It is designed to shoot down North Korean missiles, but many in South Korea fear it will make them more of a target.
The United States and South Korea began installing the radar and other key components of the system last week at an abandoned golf course in Seongju, 135 miles southeast of Seoul, after reaching an agreement to deploy it last July.
The system “is operational and has the ability to intercept North Korean missiles” and defend South Korea, said Col. Robert Manning III, a spokesman with the U.S. military in Seoul. His statement was echoed by the South Korean Defense Ministry, whose representative, Moon Sang-gyun, said the battery “has acquired an initial capability to deal with North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat.”
On Tuesday, China restated its vehement opposition to the anti-missile system and warned there would be consequences.
“We’re opposed to the United States deploying the [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] anti-missile system in South Korea, and we urge all sides involved to immediately halt deployment,” Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a regular news briefing in Beijing. “As well, we’re determined to take the necessary measures to defend our own interests.”
Geng did not specify what those measures might be.
“It is not desirable for the [caretaker] South Korean government to deploy THAAD hastily at this politically sensitive time, with the presidential election approaching, and without going through the democratic process, an environmental assessment or a public hearing,” Moon Jae-in said after an evening rally in Seongnam, south of Seoul.
“Would it happen this way in the United States?”
Moon warned that the U.S.’ actions could contribute to rising anti-American sentiment in South Korea and complicate the countries’ security alliance.
“If South Korea can have more time to process this matter democratically, the U.S. will gain a higher level of trust from South Koreans and therefore the alliance between the two nations will become even stronger,” Moon said.
In a move that shocked South Koreans, Trump said last week that he could make Seoul pay $1 billion for the system, despite an agreement that South Korea provides the land and the U.S. supplies and operates the battery.
This insistence has angered people who were on the fence about the system and rankled the system’s opponents even more.
Even conservative papers have been taken aback by the change. “Trump’s mouth rocking South Korean-U.S. alliance,” declared a headline in the rightist Chosun Ilbo.
Moon, who is closely associated with the “sunshine policy” of engagement with North Korea, could hardly be more different from Park — or from Trump.
He wants to reopen an inter-Korean industrial park and in TV debates has talked about South Korea taking the initiative on North Korea. He wants South Korea, not the United States, to have operational control of the military alliance if a war breaks out.
American analysts say that some of Moon’s campaign pledges — like his pledge to reopen the industrial park — are “fantastical,” and the candidate struck a markedly more measured, more diplomatic tone in the interview.
“The answer is no,” Moon said when asked if he would seek to rebalance the security alliance with the United States.
But Moon did say he wants South Korea “to be able to take the lead on matters on the Korean Peninsula.”
Moon has said he would be willing to go to anywhere, including to Pyongyang, to make progress on denuclearizing North Korea.
“I could sit down with Kim Jong Un, but I will not meet him for the sake of meeting him,” he said. “I will meet Kim Jong Un when preconditions of resolving the nuclear issue are assured.”
There is some overlap there. Trump said this week that he would be “honored” to meet Kim “under the right circumstances.” This comment struck a markedly different tone from Trump’s recent talk about the potential for military action, sending warships to the region and warning of the possibility of a “major, major conflict.”