Yoon's first response to North Korea provocations likely to determine course for next 5 years
來源：開云體育手機app下載發布日期：2023-02-02 12:55:55 瀏覽：5971
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| North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol / Korea Times photo |
By Kang Seung-woo
Amid signs of North Korea abandoning its self-restraint in regards to testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's pledge to take a tougher stance and bolster South Korea's deterrence against its northern neighbor ― in close cooperation with the United States ― is likely to prolong the period of non-engagement between the two Koreas under his new administration.
Furthermore, Yoon has filled the foreign policy subcommittee of his transition team with officials from the former Lee Myung-bak government, who pursued confrontational policies that almost pushed the two Koreas to the brink of war.
With the new conservative administration to be inaugurated in May, Pyongyang is likely to test how much bandwidth the Yoon administration will allow in dealing with its provocative actions, and diplomatic observers say how the new government responds to this initial saber-rattling will set the tone for inter-Korean interactions for the next five years.
"Relations between the two Koreas once President-elect Yoon takes office will entirely depend on Pyongyang," said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London.
"If North Korea goes down the test route, then I would expect the Yoon government to focus on deterrence, sanctions and denunciation of Pyongyang's human rights abuses above all. This would strain relations," he said.
Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst now with the RAND Corporation, said that the Kim Jong-un regime will renew tensions on the Korean Peninsula and watch for the response from the new South Korean government.
Traditionally, North Korea has attempted to gauge the response of new South Korean administrations with weapons demonstrations.
"Kim may seek to test the limits of the Yoon administration with provocations of varying intensity," Soo Kim said.
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