With ties between the Koreas at rock bottom, South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung is advancing several initiatives aimed to build bridges with the Kim Jong Un regime — including one focusing on the martial art of taekwondo.
In a clear departure from his predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has adopted a softer stance on North Korea during his first seven months in office, offering carrots rather than sticks to the regime in Pyongyang.
The change became obvious in recent weeks as Seoul pushed multiple initiatives to reopen communication channels and build trust with North Korea.
“Both Yoon and Lee want the same thing because there has been a stalemate in inter-Korean ties since the North’s last nuclear test, in September 2017,” said Choo Jae-woo, a professor of foreign policy at Kyung Hee University in Seoul.
The Korean Peninsula has been divided since 1948. The subsequent decades have seen periods of tension and relative rapprochement between Seoul and Pyongyang, but the bilateral ties have “broken down” in recent years, Choo said.
Lee gives ground on denuclearization
The conflict over the North’s nuclear arsenal is still the main stumbling block between the countries. Ex-President Yoon was adamant that denuclearization of the North was a pre-condition to any talks on the future of bilateral ties. Pyongyang would not agree to that stipulation. Lee, however, pushed denuclearization down the list of priorities and now sees it as an “eventual goal,” Choo said.
“Lee wants to prioritize immediate stability and peaceful coexistence and believes that any step to achieving that is reasonable and justifiable,” Choo said.
In mid-December, Lee reinstated the North Korea policy office, which had been retasked under Yoon with implementing further sanctions on the North. Now, the office will work to open dialogue on military matters between the two nations and prepare for negotiations that aim to de-escalate tensions and build confidence.
Taekwondo as cultural bridge
Similarly, South Korea’s Unification Ministry is reportedly considering lifting some of the sanctions imposed in 2010 over a North Korean submarine’s torpedoing of the South Korean corvette Cheonan. The incident claimed the lives of 46 South Korean sailors. At the time, Seoul responded by suspending cross-border trade and imposing restrictions on South Koreans travelling to the North.
Lee has now proposed a workaround to the ban on individuals who support North Korea from traveling to the North. In what could be seen as a propaganda coup for Pyongyang, Lee has suggested that any South Korean citizen who wish to travel to the North should be permitted to do so via China.
Last week, Seoul lifted restrictions on North Korean newspapers. The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North Korean Workers’ Party, can now be read in the South.
Lee has also created the new position of peace envoy for the peninsula, charged with seeking new diplomatic channels to revive talks with the North, and wants to revive a proposal from 2018 that would see a joint application from North and South for UNESCO to recognize taekwondo as a shared Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Moreover, the South Korean government has asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to travel to the North in order to breach the inter-Korean stalemate.
Yoon’s hard-line approach ‘was not a success’
Analysts note a reduction in South Korean military drills in 2025.
Pyongyang has consistently accused Seoul of using the maneuvers, which tend to involve US troops, as preparations for an invasion of North Korea.
South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young has also called for a decrease in military posturing in favor of diplomacy.
Source:https://www.dw.com/en/south-koreas-lee-ditches-hard-line-path-on-kim-north-korea/a-75360538
