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John Power

When Moon Jae-in gave his first address as the president of South Korea, he promised not to rest until he had secured a permanent peace between the divided Koreas.
“I will fly to Washington, Beijing and Tokyo, if needed, and I will also go to Pyongyang, if conditions are met,” Moon said during his 2017 inaugural speech. “I will do everything in my power to bring peace to the peninsula.”
Nearly five years on, the South Korean leader is in a race against time to make good on his word and leave behind a lasting legacy before the end of his single five-year term in May.
Moon, a former human rights lawyer and son of North Korean refugees, faces an array of obstacles to realising his vision, which sees a declaration to officially end the Korean war as a pathway to the North’s denuclearisation, inter-Korean reconciliation and eventual reunification.
Divided in the aftermath of World War II, North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war after the 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
To succeed, Moon, who is constitutionally barred from running for re-election in March’s presidential vote, will have to bridge yawning differences between Washington and Pyongyang, and fend off growing disillusionment toward his rapprochement efforts at home.

“He is committed to achieving peace not only because of legacy politics, but also because of his personal background as a son of North Korean refugees,” said Moon Chung-in, a former adviser to the president who is no relation.
Moon Chung-in said the South Korean leader was focused on persuading the US administration of Joe Biden to ease sanctions on the North, agree to a peace treaty and endorse inter-Korean projects such as a closed industrial park near the inter-Korean border.
“I do not know whether such efforts will be successful or not,” said Moon, who advised the president on national security and foreign affairs until February of this year.
“However, if the Biden administration shows a more practical and flexible response, such a move will facilitate negotiations on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula as well as a virtuous cycle of bilateral relations among North Korea, South Korea, and the US.”
The presidential office, Cheong Wae Dae, did not respond to a request for comment.
For the South Korean president, bringing the Biden administration on board with an agenda of inter-Korean reconciliation is likely to be a struggle as long as Washington and Pyongyang remain far apart on denuclearisation.

Seoul hosts almost 30,000 US troops on its soil – a legacy of the conflict between the US-backed South and Soviet-backed North – making Washington a key voice in the management of inter-Korean ties.
Although Biden has expressed openness to dialogue with the North, his administration has displayed little urgency about coaxing the isolated state back to denuclearisation talks under a “calibrated practical approach” that critics say is vaguely-defined.
The Democratic president has also criticised his predecessor Donald Trump for granting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un legitimacy and allowing him to appear “more serious about what he wasn’t at all serious about”.
Trump held two face-to-face summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019 that failed to result in concrete steps toward denuclearisation. Trump said their final meeting in Hanoi collapsed after the North demanded sanctions be “lifted in their entirety” in exchange for only partial disarmament, an account later denied by Pyongyang.
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Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Trump-era official who worked on North Korea issues said he expected the Moon administration to be lobbying hard to take charge of managing relations with Pyongyang.
“I am confident Moon’s opening pitch to the Biden administration was ‘we can handle this if you will just let us’,” the former official said.
“That sounds good, but it isn’t true and it creates seams in the alliance. Moon clearly wants all the security and defence benefits the alliance with the United States provides, but he also believes Seoul should be leading those efforts. When the US would raise its strategic objectives or interests, Moon’s people would often hand wave them away.”

Pyongyang has spurned repeated offers by Seoul to resume dialogue and inter-Korean cooperation, although its officials this month restored a cross-border hotline that was severed in August in protest against joint US-South Korea military exercises.
The North has also carried out numerous weapons tests in recent months, including the firing on Tuesday of a submarine-launched ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan, or East Sea.
“The Biden administration’s phased, controlled North Korea policy and the Moon administration’s North Korea policy should be in harmony,” said Yang Seung-ham, a politics and diplomacy professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.
“What’s disappointing is that because of the US’s domestic problems and South Korea’s election next year, there’s no unanimity on it being a policy priority.”
Yang said Moon needed to take a more forceful line in his diplomacy with both North Korea and the US.
“It needs to use the carrot and stick with the North and convince the US of the unique character of the relationship between the Koreas,” he said.
China, North Korea’s biggest ally and a signatory to the 1953 armistice, also has the potential to make or break Moon’s plans. Calling on Washington to move beyond “empty slogans”, the Chinese Foreign Ministry this month said the US should seriously consider Pyongyang’s “justified and reasonable concerns” and revise its sanctions.


Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie‑Tsinghua Centre in Beijing, said China would be supportive of Moon’s efforts to bring about a resolution of the stalemate on the Korean peninsula.
“The current cycle of inter-Korean missile testing competition must be of concern to Beijing and the fast and open-ended strategic capability development by North Korea cannot be good news to China’s desire to maintain regional stability,” Zhao said.
“China also has a strong interest to keep South Korea close to itself, not least because Seoul is viewed as the weakest link in the US-led alliance network in the region and a cooperative relationship with Seoul would increase China’s leverage against perceived US efforts to build anti-China alliances.”
Some observers believe Moon’s last-ditch outreach efforts could include a final summit with Kim Jong-un, following three such meetings in 2018. Moon’s political mentor Roh Moo-hyun – who continued the pro-rapprochement “sunshine” policy of South Korea’s first left-leaning president Kim Dae-jung – held a summit with late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as he faced lame duck status on the domestic front during the final months of his presidency.
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After the enthusiasm that greeted Moon’s rapprochement efforts early in his tenure, any such gesture would be greeted by a South Korean public increasingly apathetic toward the North.
In an opinion survey released by the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies this month, just over 44 per cent of South Koreans said they believed reunification was necessary – the lowest figure since the launch of the poll in 2007.
Shin Kwang-yeong, a sociology professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, said younger South Koreans did not have memories of an undivided Korea like their parents and grandparents and increasingly viewed the prospect of reunification as “chaotic and costly”.
“They are more interested in their jobs and well-being,” Shin said.

Hong Deuk-pyo, professor emeritus at Inha University, said South Koreans widely expected Moon to push for a summit with Kim to counter his lame duck status.
“The bus has already left the station, but President Moon is morbidly obsessed with the North,” he said.
Chung Min Lee, who worked on national security issues under two conservative South Korean presidents, predicted Moon’s efforts would do little to change the North and he would go down as the last South Korean leader to put “almost all of his eggs in the ‘sunshine basket’.”
“Whoever succeeds him is going to face an onslaught of unparalleled global challenges and massive economic, financial, and technological disruptions,” Lee said.
Moon Chung-in, the former presidential adviser, suggested South Korea’s 19th president would in fact leave behind a notable legacy.
“His commitment to peace, no nukes, and South Korea’s proactive role in shaping the destiny of the Korean peninsula will be positively remembered,” he said.
“He was the leader who persuaded Chairman Kim Jong-un to verbally declare his intention for denuclearisation. He was also the South Korean president who mediated the first US-North Korea summit.
“While pursuing peacemaking efforts, he was also devoted to building formidable national defence capabilities. He had an ideal goal and vision, yet he was a realist who wanted to safeguard national interests.”


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The sun is setting on Moon Jae-in’s promise of inter-Korean peace, and Joe Biden isn’t budging

A television broadcast in Seoul of a North Korean missile test. Photo: AFP

South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Photo: AP

US President Joe Biden. Photo: EPA

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and then US President Donald Trumpheld face-to-face summits in 2018 and 2019. Photo: DPA

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in inside the Peace House at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea. Photo: AP

South Korean politicians dial up attacks on Moon Jae-in’s US-China balancing act, sparking response from Chinese envoy

A supporter takes a photo of a banner with an image of Yoon Suk-yeol in Seoul. Photo: AP

epa09310140 Supporters of the former South Korean Prosecutor General Yoon Suk-yeol, gather during a press conference held to declare Yoon's intention to run in the March 2022 presidential election, at a memorial dedicated to independence fighter Yun Bong-gil, in Seoul, South Korea, 29 June 2021. EPA-EFE/JEON HEON-KYUN

US President Joe Biden (R) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in hold a joint press conference after their meeting at the White House.

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in will not attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games or meet with the Japanese prime minister. Photo: AFP

19 July 2021, South Korea, Seoul: South Korean President Moon Jae-in (C) presides over a meeting of his senior secretaries at the presidential office in Seoul. Photo: -/YNA/dpa

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The South Korean leader is racing against time to meet his pledge of securing a permanent peace with the North before his term is up
China may be on board, but a lack of progress on denuclearisation has left the US cold. Meanwhile, Moon’s public is growing sceptical of reunification



China may be on board, but a lack of progress on denuclearisation has left the US cold. Meanwhile, the South Korean public is growing sceptical of reunification.
