[Opinion] The Challenging Biden Era in Korea-US Relations

Lee Yong-jun, Former Ambassador for North Korean Nuclear Issues and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

Since the inauguration of the Joe Biden administration, key senior appointments responsible for foreign relations have been made, and the new U.S. foreign policy direction is gradually taking shape. The core elements can be summarized into three: restoration and strengthening of alliance relationships, continuation of the Trump administration’s pressure policy on China, and the global promotion of democracy and human rights.

These policies are generally similar to what was anticipated during last year’s presidential campaign, but notably, the China policy is showing a tougher stance than initially expected. Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s policy toward the Korean Peninsula is revealing specific interests and policy goals through senior appointments and statements from the White House, State Department, and Department of Defense.

The Biden administration’s current core concerns regarding the Korean Peninsula can be condensed into three points. First is the denuclearization of North Korea to eliminate its nuclear threat to the U.S. While the U.S. intends to pursue a completely different approach based on the failure of the Trump administration’s U.S.-North Korea summits, the South Korean government appears to remain fixated on the top-down negotiation approach preferred by North Korea.

Second is the restoration of the South Korea-U.S.-Japan trilateral security cooperation. The U.S. regards this as a key pillar of the East Asian security system and is determined to rebuild it, but this fundamentally conflicts with the Moon Jae-in administration’s pro-China, pro-North Korea, and anti-Japan policies. Third is the resumption of the joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises, which were suspended during the Trump administration. This is crucial not only for security on the Korean Peninsula but also for U.S. military policy toward China, though the Moon administration is concerned about North Korea’s backlash.

All these issues involve significant disagreements between the two countries, and considerable friction in South Korea-U.S. relations is expected in the future. Beyond these three issues, democracy and human rights on the Korean Peninsula have emerged as important concerns for the U.S. Congress. While this issue was raised for a long time by progressive Democrats in the U.S. Congress during South Korea’s past authoritarian regimes, after democratization, only North Korean human rights remained a focus.

However, with the adoption of the ‘Law Prohibiting Leaflet Distribution to North Korea’ last year, this issue has resurfaced as a matter concerning ‘South Korea’s democracy and human rights.’ The U.S. House Lantos Human Rights Commission is preparing a hearing on this soon, and the U.S. administration is also expected to raise this issue in its annual State Department human rights report.

Due to these four key issues that the U.S. government and Congress will focus on in future Korean Peninsula policy, discord in bilateral relations is likely from the early days of the Biden administration. Although these four issues belong to different fields?North Korea, diplomacy, defense, and domestic politics?they are not separate problems but rather four different faces connected to one body.

Therefore, unless the problem of the body is resolved, none of these issues can be solved. What is that body? It is the abnormal identity of this country’s foreign and security policy symbolized by the pro-North Korea policy.

If the substance of our foreign and security policy is an obsession with mediating U.S.-North Korea negotiations to help lift sanctions on the nuclear-armed North, leading the dismantling of the South Korea-U.S.-Japan trilateral security cooperation long desired by North Korea and China, agreeing to the suspension of joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises demanded since the Kim Il-sung era, and cooperating in the criminalization of anti-North Korean leaflets that threaten the North Korean communist dictatorship, then there is no place for South Korea and the U.S. to stand together as allies.

For the sake of our national security, the South Korea-U.S. alliance, the continued presence of U.S. Forces Korea, and the early return of wartime operational control sought by the Moon Jae-in administration, foreign policies that provoke suspicion among allies and partners should be carefully reconsidered and restrained.