[사설] Eui-yong Eui-yong, is it suitable for diplomacy in the Biden era?

President Moon Jae-in reorganized three ministries yesterday. With this greeting, the current government’s long-term foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, will be replaced by President Eui-yong Eui-yong, a special assistant for foreign affairs and security. Democratic Party lawmakers, along with Hwang Hee and Kwon Chil-seung, were appointed to succeed the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Park Yang-woo and the Minister of Small and Medium Venture Business Park Young-sun. The opposition party criticized it as’a person who specializes in blocking and turning around’. Candidate Jung served as the first head of the National Security Office of the government for three years, and candidates Hwang and Kwon are members of the’Owls’ gatherings from Blue House Roh Moo-hyun. People’s Power Spokesman Choi Hyung-du pointed out, “Is there not so much candidate for the minister other than the president’s aide?”

Minister Kang Kyung-hwa suffered from’incompetence theory’ throughout his tenure. I even used the stigma as’invisible minister’ and’doll’ because I couldn’t speak my voice. Concerns arose that the ROK-US alliance and Korea-Japan relations are in crisis. Even so, President Moon stubbornly entrusted him with foreign affairs for three years and seven months. Meanwhile, Korea’s diplomacy has become an isolated servant.

President Moon actually chose Candidate Jung as the head of diplomacy to be with him for his term. With this, it is interpreted that President Moon put his focus on diplomacy for the rest of his term to reactivate the’peace process on the Korean Peninsula’. At a New Year press conference on the 18th, President Moon summoned the 2018 Singapore-North Korea-U.S. talks and made a remark, “Let’s start again with the Singapore Declaration.” Candidate Jung, as head of the National Security Office, mediated the talks between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The problem is that Cho Biden, who will be launched on the 20th (local time) in conjunction with candidate Jung’s personnel, has a different idea. Biden defines the North Korean-US talks mediated by Candidate Chung as a’reality show without results’ and evaluates it as a failure. It is the view that only the political status of Chairman Kim Jong-un has been enhanced and there is no practical gain. US Secretary of State Tony Blincoln said at a Senate approval hearing on the 19th that the North Korean nuclear issue has “not improved, it has gotten worse,” and “the first thing we are going to do is review the overall approach.” This means a reexamination of the top-down method that the Korean government was trying to realize through Trump. At the time of the Biden administration’s inauguration, the United States has doubts about the South Korean government, which at the time of the inauguration of the Biden administration, has put up as the head of diplomacy a person who regards as the mediator of the “failed” North Korea-US talks. It was the time when a more capable and novel person was needed.

Candidate Chung showed a disagreement with the United States, who strongly hoped to maintain the 2019 Korea-Japan Military Information Protection Agreement (Gisomia). Even when the issue of forced labor in Korea and Japan emerged, it did not produce results. Recently, a judgment on comfort women has been added, further complicating the relationship between Korea and Japan. It is difficult to shake the idea that Candidate Chung is not the right person in resolving numerous diplomatic issues, such as the Korea-US alliance, which has to create a new version, and Korea-Japan relations intensifying conflict.