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South Korea's new president to teach 'rude boy' Kim Jong Un some manners

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Sunghee Hwang, Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="South Korea" s="" president-elect="" Yoon="" Suk-yeol="" speaks="" during="" a="" news="" conference="" at="" the="" National="" Assembly="" in="" South="" Korea="" on="" March="" EPA-EFE="" Kim="" Hong-Ji="" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2022/tvpatrol/03/10/yoon-suk-yeol.jpg"/><figcaption>South Korea&#x27;s president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol speaks during a news conference at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea on March 10, 2022. EPA-EFE/Kim Hong-Ji/Pool</figcaption></figure></div>Threatening a pre-emptive strike, swiftly responding to missile tests, and telling &quot;rude boy&quot; leader Kim Jong Un to behave: South Korea&#x27;s next president looks set to get tough on the nuclear-armed North, analysts say.For the last five years Seoul has pursued a policy of engagement with Pyongyang, brokering high-level summits between Kim and then-US president Donald Trump while reducing joint US military drills the North sees as provocative.For president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol -- who won a close election by a razor-thin margin Thursday -- this &quot;subservient&quot; approach has been a manifest failure.The outgoing administration of President Moon Jae-in &quot;volunteered to play middleman between the US and North Korea but was dumped by both in the end,&quot; Yoon said in a pre-election Facebook post.Since the start of the year, Pyongyang has conducted a record-breaking nine weapons tests, including of banned hypersonic and medium range ballistic missiles.After the North test-fired what it claimed was a reconnaissance satellite component Saturday -- Seoul said it was a disguised ballistic missile -- Yoon, 61, said the youthful Kim needed to be taken in hand.&quot;If you give me a chance, I will teach him some manners,&quot; he said.On the campaign trail, he said Kim was a &quot;rude boy&quot;, and promised that once he was in power, he would make the North Korean leader &quot;snap out of it&quot;.The former prosecutor has threatened a pre-emptive strike on the North &quot;if necessary&quot; -- something analysts say is wildly unrealistic and dangerous.Even so, Yoon vowed Thursday to &quot;sternly deal with the North&#x27;s illegal and irrational acts,&quot; in his first comments as president-elect.<div>- Reset relations -</div>&quot;Under Yoon, we&#x27;ll probably see efforts to reset inter-Korean relations,&quot; Soo Kim of the RAND Corporation told AFP.Instead of dialogue and engagement, she said, Yoon will take a harder line, having already called for more joint drills with the US.&quot;It&#x27;s a departure from the Moon administration&#x27;s prioritisation of inter-Korean engagement, to say the least,&quot; she added.The &quot;one-way love&quot; displayed under Moon will come to an end, said Professor Park Won-gon of Ewha Womans University.&quot;Yoon will certainly want to put the issue of denuclearisation in the agenda,&quot; said Park, in contrast to the more piecemeal diplomacy pursued by his liberal predecessor. &quot;It&#x27;s highly likely that North Korea will say no.&quot;Yoon has even suggested buying an additional THAAD missile system from the US to counter the North -- despite risks that it could prompt new economic retaliation from China, Seoul&#x27;s biggest trade partner.&quot;Seoul must also retool its complex relationship with Beijing,&quot; Yoon said in a policy statement in Foreign Affairs last month.<div>- &#x27;Nothing to gain&#x27; -</div>President Moon met with leader Kim Jong Un four times, and brokered high-profile talks between Pyongyang and Washington.But negotiations collapsed in 2019, and diplomacy has stalled as Pyongyang has ramped up weapons testing and threatened to abandon a self-imposed moratorium on testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons.Yoon has not ruled out the possibility of dialogue with Pyongyang, but analysts say his hawkish position puts him on a completely different footing and significantly reduces the prospect of substantive engagement.Pyongyang will judge it has &quot;nothing to gain&quot; from talking to a hardline South Korean government, Hong Min, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification told AFP. Keeping tensions on the peninsula high will work in Pyongyang&#x27;s favour, Hong added, allowing it to keep momentum on Kim&#x27;s avowed program of military modernisation.&quot;North Korea will pick up the tempo of its nuclear and missile development and use the hawkish South Korean government to justify its actions.&quot;

South Korea's next president looks set to get tough on the nuclear-armed North, analysts say.

South Korea's new president to teach 'rude boy' Kim Jong Un some manners

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South Korea's new president to teach 'rude boy' Kim Jong Un some manners

Sunghee Hwang,

Agence France-Presse

Published Mar 10, 2022 05:31 PM PHT

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Yoon Suk-yeol

politics

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