South Korea elects liberal to presidency
Lawyer Moon Jaein favors a dialogue with North Korea.
Moon Jae-in, a human rights attorney, favors dialogue with the North, setting up a Trump clash.
South Korea elected Moon Jae-in, a human rights lawyer who favors dialogue with North Korea, as president Tuesday, returning the nation’s liberals to power after nearly a decade in the political wilderness and setting up a potential rift with the United States over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
His victory caps a remarkable national drama in which a corruption scandal, mass protests and impeachment forced a South Korean president from office for the first time in almost 60 years, leaving the conservative establishment in disarray and its former leader in jail.
Moon, 64, a son of North Korean refugees, faces the challenge of enacting changes to limit the power of big business and address the abuses uncovered in his predecessor’s downfall, while balancing relations with the United States and China and following through on his promise of a new approach to North Korea.
His election also scrambles the geopolitics over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Even as the Trump administration is urging the world to step up pressure on Pyongyang, it now faces the prospect of a critical ally — one with the most at stake in any conflict with the North — breaking ranks and adopting a more conciliatory approach.
Moon has argued that Washington’s reliance on sanctions and pressure has been ineffective and that it is time to give engagement and dialogue with the North another chance, an approach favored by China. He has also called for a review of the Pentagon’s deployment of an antimissile defense system in South Korea that the Chinese government has denounced.
Moon’s position on North Korea is a sharp departure from that of his two immediate predecessors, conservatives who tended to view anything less than strict enforcement of sanctions against the North as ideologically suspect.
While he condemned “the ruthless dictatorial regime of North Korea” during his campaign, Moon also argued that South Korea must “embrace the North Korean people to achieve peaceful reunification one day.”
David Straub, a former director of Korean affairs at the State Department and a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, a think tank near Seoul, warned of “serious policy differences between the U.S. and South Korean presidents” over North Korea and related issues. He added that these differences could lead to “significantly increased popular dissatisfaction with the United States in South Korea.”
China, on the other hand, is likely to welcome Moon’s election, which may make it easier for it to deflect pressure from the United States to get tough on North Korea and strengthen its argument that Washington must address the North’s concerns about security.
Some analysts suggest Moon’s victory would lower the temperature of the North Korean standoff, prompting Washington and Pyongyang to pause and assess the effect of the new government on their policies. Satellite images indicate the North has been preparing to conduct a sixth nuclear test, and the Trump administration has engaged in a heated campaign to stop it.
Moon, 64, is the son of North Korean refugees.