[Yang Nak-gyu's Defence Club] North Korea's Choice Ahead of Biden's DMZ Visit

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] Attention is focused on whether U.S. President Joe Biden will visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) during the Korea-U.S. summit. If President Biden visits the DMZ this time, it will be his third visit and is expected to carry a strong message urging North Korea to refrain from provocations.

According to government officials on the 17th, the U.S. government is coordinating a schedule for President Biden’s visit to Camp Humphreys, a U.S. military base located in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, the United Nations Command in Korea, and Panmunjom within the DMZ during his visit to Korea from the 20th to the 22nd.

Among past U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan was the first sitting president to visit the DMZ in 1983. Afterwards, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush each visited guard posts adjacent to the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the DMZ in 1993 and 2002, respectively. Barack Obama also visited the DMZ in 2012. Donald Trump attempted to visit the DMZ during his 2017 visit to Korea but was unable to due to bad weather. However, in June 2019, he met with then-President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Workers' Party General Secretary Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom within the DMZ.

As for President Biden, he visited the DMZ during his visits to Korea as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in August 2001 and as Vice President in December 2013.

If President Biden visits the DMZ again during this visit, the core message is likely to be “restraint from provocations by North Korea.” When former President Obama visited in 2012, he delivered an indirect message to North Korea, saying, "There is no place more clearly and starkly contrasting in terms of freedom and prosperity than South and North Korea."

Since the beginning of this year until the 12th of this month, North Korea has carried out a total of 16 military provocations, including missile launches and multiple rocket launcher firings, with one failure included. In particular, North Korea has begun restoring the underground tunnels at the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, Kilju County, North Hamgyong Province, which was closed in May 2018, and it is anticipated that the seventh nuclear test will be conducted soon.

However, some speculate that if the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in North Korea continues uncontrollably, President Biden’s plan to visit the DMZ may be canceled.