‘Severe sanctions’ warns veteran comeback against North Korea…

On the 16th (local time), the US Transition Committee for Joe Biden, three days ahead of its inauguration, announced additional diplomatic and security lines, such as appointing Wendy Sherman as Deputy Secretary of State. In a statement, Biden said, “Our diverse and talented team, led by Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln, will embody my core belief that the United States is the strongest when it comes to working with our allies.” The nominations on the day included Deputy Secretary Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State Administration and Resources, Brian McKeon, Deputy Minister for Disarmament and International Security, Bonnie Jenkins, Deputy Minister for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, and Deputy Minister for Civil Security, Democracy and Human Rights, Uzra Zeya.

Deputy Minister Sherman, who served as the coordinator of North Korea during the Bill Clinton administration, said at a forum co-hosted by the JoongAng Ilbo and the US Institute for Strategic Studies (CSIS) in 2016. It is necessary.” They also argued that the US should prepare for the collapse of the Chinese and North Korean regimes along with South Korea and Japan.

Former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, appointed by the Biden Transition Committee the day before as head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), was the person who led the UN Security Council’s resolution of sanctions against North Korea during the Obama administration. Immediately after North Korea’s 4th nuclear test and long-range missile test in 2016, it led the passage of Resolution 2270 of the Security Council sanctions against North Korea, which is regarded as the’strongest ever’. Deputy Secretary of State for Civil Security, Democracy, and Human Rights also worked on human rights issues in North Korea under the Obama administration’s Secretary of State John Kerry.

With the announcement that day, bold diplomatic and security posts of the next US government also outlined. Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln, who was announced earlier, and Jake Sullivan, Senior Adviser of the White House National Security Council (NSC), Curt Campbell, Director of Asian Policy (Asia Tsar), and CIA Director William Burns, were also in charge of the biden team on the Korean Peninsula policy. Diplomatic veterans with long experience were deployed forward. All of them are as much as ‘Pacome on the Korean Peninsula’, and they are well aware of the North Korean nuclear and North Korean situation, as well as the domestic politics of South Korea and the complex sentiment between Korea and Japan. The return of the pacomers has a positive side to the burden of re-studying the situation on the Korean peninsula for the South Korean government, but on the other hand, there is a burden that cannot be dealt with as they deal with the Trump administration as they already know North Korea and the Korean peninsula well.

These Korean peninsula veterans, who have a very different view from Donald Trump’s administration, which attempted to talk directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, are expected to “differentiate from Trump”. This is why the Moon Jae-in administration, which prefers direct dialogue between the two Koreas and North America, is expected to differ.

For those who know North Korea well and understand the history of denuclearization negotiations for more than 30 years, drawing a sketch of the policy on the Korean peninsula means that North Korea has met its right opponent. They are different from President Trump from the perspective of looking at North Korea. Biden-elect himself criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “thug” during a presidential election TV debate with President Trump in October last year. “Until Hitler (of the German Nazi regime) invaded Europe, we had a good relationship with him.”

Curt Campbell, former Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific, who will oversee Asian policy, described North Korea as “an anachronistic being in the middle of remarkable prosperity” and “the world’s most regressed” in his 2016 book Pivot: The Future of America’s Asian Strategy. One of the nations”. It was a position that the US management was necessary as it was a gunpowder warehouse that did not know where it would jump. He was in charge of the six-party talks as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific during the Obama administration, and is considered a relative of the appeasements toward North Korea.

CIA Director-nominee Burns also expressed skepticism in a talk with the Asia Society last month, saying, “Though President Trump’s three attempts at meetings are meaningful, Kim Jong-un is not willing to complete denuclearization in the near future.” Burns is the person who made secret negotiations through the’back channel’ during the Iran Nuclear Negotiation (JCPOA) process. It is expected to play a key role in future denuclearization negotiations with North Korea.

The prevailing prospect is that Biden-elect will not engage in direct dialogue with Chairman Kim unless there is progress in working-level negotiations. In addition, it has been emphasized that the North Korean denuclearization issue needs to cope with neighboring countries such as China. This approach may take longer than direct dialogue between the United States and North Korea.

At the time of the first North Korean-U.S. summit meeting in 2018, Blincoln’s nominee for the Secretary of State made it clear in his two New York Times (NYT) contributions that “the North Korean denuclearization negotiations should include the monitoring system contained in the Iran Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA).” . The issues of inspection and verification of denuclearization are issues that North Korea has shown allergic reactions in past negotiations.

In addition, these foreign affairs and security staffs are characterized by having dealt with not only issues on the Korean peninsula, but also foreign issues in the US such as China and Iran. It means that the North Korean issue may not always be the top priority when formulating priorities for foreign policy. In fact, the nominee of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in an interview with CNN on the 3rd of this month (local time) regarding the’Newstart Treaty’, a strategic arms disarmament negotiation with Russia, such as nuclear missiles, “It expired a little after two weeks after we took office. It will be done, so we have to go ahead with the extension immediately.” Iran has also declared that it will raise its uranium enrichment level (the 3.75% limit according to the JCPOA) to 20%.

The US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, or the Special Representative for North Korea, who are usually in charge of policy on the Korean Peninsula, were not included in this election. These positions are expected to be the final puzzle to assess the Biden administration’s North Korea policy.

For this reason, some point out that the Moon Jae-in administration, which has virtually left its last year in office, can form a tense relationship with the Biden government if it hastily made results in its North Korean policy. In the passport, remarks conscious of the Moon government’s timetable are already being made. Representative of the Democratic Party’s Democratic Party member Yoon Gun-young said, “Chairman Kim’s return within the year must be completed this year.” Prior to this, former presidential secretary Lim Jong-seok publicly discussed “an active interpretation of sanctions against North Korea” to drive inter-Korean cooperation.

Blincoln’s nominee for the Secretary of State also expressed a negative view of the 4·27 Panmunjom Declaration in a previous media contribution, saying, “It was a more ambiguous language than the promises in 2005 and 2012 that North Korea abandoned (of the six-party talks).”

Former Ambassador Juro Sao-Rak said, “The Biden Foreign Affairs and Security Team has already experienced North Korea, and that is why the lack of trust in North Korea may become an obstacle to policy.”

Reporters Yoo-jung Lee and Hong-beom Kim [email protected]