South Korean policy toward North Korea, struck anchorage… Biden sits in charge of East Asia Pacific

Park, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs of the US State Department, former Chairman of the Brookings Institute in Korea. After serving as a senior analyst with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he is called’Kim Jong-un expert’. [중앙포토]

An expert on the Korean peninsula, who criticized the government’s policy toward North Korea as’unrequited love’, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific.

Chung Park (47), a Korean seat at the Brookings Research Institute, announced on Twitter on the 26th (local time) that “I am happy to announce that I am joining the State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia Pacific.”

Deputy Assistant Secretary Park is evaluated as specialized in information analysis on the Korean Peninsula at home and abroad. He served as Deputy Intelligence Officer in charge of East Asia, Senior Analyst for North Korea, and Director of the East Asia-Pacific Mission Center, passing through the National Intelligence Service (DNI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2009 to 2017.

He is also called’Kim Jong-un expert’. Last year, he and Kim Jong-un published a book that analyzed the future of North Korea, “Becoming Kim Jong-un: Insights from a former CIA analyst on the mysterious young dictator in North Korea.”

The Deputy Vice Minister of State is usually evaluated at the same level as the Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Korea (Level 2). However, it is analyzed that Deputy Assistant Secretary Park will play a role of level 2 or higher, with a broader scope of work and stronger influence than the former Deputy Assistant Secretary Mark Naper. This is because President Biden’s position to pursue a’new strategy’ in relation to North Korea policy was formalized, and the importance of the Deputy Assistant Secretary has emerged as he emphasized practical negotiations based on’bottom up’.

In diplomatic families, there is an atmosphere of anticipation of a “warm wind” in that the East Asia Thailand line of the State Department was formed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sung Kim and Deputy Assistant Secretary Park of Korean descent.

His book, Becoming Kim Jong Un, published last year. [중앙포토]

However, there is also an analysis that Deputy Assistant Secretary Park may be a gritty partner, except that he is ‘Korean’. This is because it has repeatedly criticized the current government’s North Korean policy itself, such as criticizing the anti-North Korea warfare law (revised Inter-Korean Relations Development Act).

Deputy Assistant Secretary Park recently wrote in his article entitled’The Long Shadow of North Korea Casting on Korean Democracy’, which he wrote as a Korean seat at the Brookings Institute. He pointed out that it is selectively oppressing the freedom of the people while making it as a choice. In addition, he argued, “Reexamination of the THAAD system or the threat of withdrawal from the GSOMIA (GSOMIA, Korea-Japan Military Information Protection Agreement) could lead to questioning the reliability of Korean policy.”

“There are variables such as the additional appointment of a special representative for North Korea policy by the Ministry of State, but basically, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia and Thailand, who is in charge of comprehensive affairs on the Korean peninsula, can have an effect on the major trends of North Korea policy. As far as it is, it is a negative evaluation of South Korea’s policy toward North Korea or the progress of North Korea’s denuclearization, so it could be an uncomfortable opponent for the Moon Jae-in administration.”

Meanwhile, the US Senate on the 26th handled the approval of the nominee of Secretary of State Tony Blincoln with 78 in favor and 22 against. After removing the’nominee’ label, Secretary Blincoln made the first phone call with Canadian Foreign Minister Mark Gano, and later spoke with Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu. The third person to call was Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha.

The US and ROK ministers agreed to the urgency of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue in the call on the same day, and agreed to close discussions between the two countries to resolve this issue. Minister Kang also left a statement that he expects to be able to communicate as soon as the new foreign minister takes office.

Washington = correspondent Park Hyun-young, Seoul = reporter Jeong Jin-woo [email protected]