I provided my comments today to Radio Free Asia’s Korean service on what likely would be leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s policy toward North and South Korea:
Original Korean post:
English machine translation:
And here are my full comments as provided by email. Many thanks to Albert Hong:
“The Democratic Party has not had a good track record with North Korea since the Obama administration, unlike under the Clinton administration that negotiated the Agreed Framework in 1994. At best, under Obama, it had been one of benign neglect, and under President Trump, Democrats seem to have tried to sabotage his efforts in 2018-19 to engage North Korea. Nancy Pelosi apparently is extremely distrustful of North Korea (as she conveyed to the Speaker of the ROK National Assembly) and appeared to have deliberately scheduled Michael Cohen’s long-awaited House testimony while Trump was in Hanoi in late February 2019 while he was meeting Kim Jong Un – just to unnerve and distract Trump. In a sense, Pelosi helped contribute to the failure of the Hanoi summit.
“Unfortunately, I do not see a Biden administration changing the current policy of comprehensive sanctions and probably it would ramp joint military exercises back to normal (see Biden’s declared policy on North Korea here). If Trump had laid a foundation with Kim that led to an interim nuclear agreement, then if elected, Biden could build on that; but without any substantive agreement, Biden will likely not make any moves to improve relations with North Korea. However, Biden would not attempt to withdraw any U.S. troops from South Korea or demand excessive payment by the ROK to maintain American forces, whereas if reelected, Trump will likely draw down U.S. Forces Korea to about 4,000-5,000 and explain this drawdown is because the ROK refused to pay its fair share. This will have a very damaging impact to regional security in Northeast Asia.
“In contrast, Bernie Sanders has said he would be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un, but Sanders may no longer have a realistic path to the nomination given events in the last few days.”♦
Photo at top: Vice President Joe Biden visited Observation Post Ouellette at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on December 7, 2013 in Panmunjom, South Korea.
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