SEOUL, South Korea: If intelligence predictions of a significant weapons display by North Korea, which is battling a COVID-19 outbreak, are correct, then North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program, which is already a primary focus at the time, maybe even higher and could attract more attention when U.S. and South Korean leaders meet on Saturday.
It is unclear whether Joe Biden’s meeting with newly established Eun Suk Yeol will result in a meaningfully new approach to tackling the nuclear threat that has plagued allies for decades.
In Seoul, there’s the worry that Washington is slipping back to the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” policy of ignoring North Korea until it demonstrates denuclearisation seriousness. This approach was criticized for neglecting the North as it made huge strides in building its nuclear arsenal.
U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say North Korea may welcome Biden to the region — he’s also visiting Japan — with a ballistic missile test or its first detonation of a nuclear device since 2017.
There’s little chance of any real nuclear diplomacy. North Korea has ignored South Korea, and the U.S. offered assistance after its admission of a COVID-19 outbreak last week, dashing hopes that such cooperation could help ease nuclear tensions or even lead to talks.
Yoon, a conservative former prosecutor who took office on May 10, has said he wants to strengthen ties with Washington while enhancing South Korea’s missile strike and defence capabilities. He has also called for the resumption of large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Those were downsized or suspended over virus worries and during ultimately fruitless nuclear talks between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-UN.
Biden may raise with Yoon a desire for a broader role from South Korea in the alliance, moving away from a focus mainly on North Korea as U.S. foreign policy attention shifts toward confronting China and Russia.
Yoon will likely use the meeting with Biden to declare South Korea’s participation in the Indo Pacific Economic Framework, a new U.S.-led regional partnership promoting cooperation in trade, supply chain resiliency, technology and other issues. That will almost certainly anger China, South Korea’s largest trading partner.
Yoon also will seek a strong statement from Biden reaffirming a U.S. commitment to provide “extended deterrence” to South Korea and a vow to defend its ally with its full range of military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, in the event of war with North Korea, said Go Myong-Hyun, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
Prolonging the stalemate in diplomacy, North Korea has rejected repeated U.S. offers of open-ended talks. The Biden administration has shown no willingness to remove crippling economic sanctions against North Korea unless it accepts meaningful cutbacks to an arsenal Kim Jong Un sees as his strongest guarantee of survival.
