Latest North Korea missile launch tests Moon’s team of doves

SEOUL — North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un isn’t giving South Korea’s new leader much room to try out a softer approach toward his regime.

North Korea fired off another medium-range ballistic missile on Sunday (May 21), the country’s eighth test this year and the second since Mr Moon Jae-in won South Korea’s presidential election on May 9. United States President Donald Trump has vowed to stop North Korea’s push for a missile that could deliver a nuclear warhead to North America, by force if necessary.

Mr Moon campaigned on a policy of engagement with North Korea, changing tack from the hardline approach under nine years of conservative rule. He’s already sought to mend ties with China – North Korea’s main ally and benefactor – and appointed key aides that have experience reaching out to Kim’s regime.

In 2007, as chief of staff to former President Roh Moo-hyun, Mr Moon helped arrange a meeting with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Mr Moon has repeatedly said that talks now would only be possible once the country changes its attitude.

Still, Mr Moon’s picks for chief of staff, national security advisor and spy agency chief indicate he will engage with the Kim Jong-un regime in the long run, according to Professor Kim Hyun-wook of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.

“Moon’s appointments herald a clear shift in dealing with North Korea,” Prof Kim said. “There can be acceleration and deceleration with the pursuit of a dialogue, but in the broader picture, we’re headed for reconciliation, exchanges and conversation.”

Here are introductions to Mr Moon’s key appointments, and possible candidates for unification minister – a position that involves forming policies related to North Korea.

IM JONG-SEOK, CHIEF OF STAFF

Mr Im, 51, became a household name in his early 20s when he headed a leftist student group that demanded peaceful unification of the peninsula. In defiance of the national security law, he sent a colleague, Ms Lim Soo-kyung, to Pyongyang to attend a festival, who then shocked South Koreans by meeting with North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung.

Mr Im eluded authorities for almost a year, despite offers of rewards for information on his whereabouts. Rumors were rife – and later denied by Mr Im – that he disguised himself as a woman to avoid capture. He was eventually caught, tried and sentenced to a five-year prison term before being released after more than three years.

Mr Im later became a two-term lawmaker and Seoul’s deputy mayor before joining Mr Moon’s election campaign. Explaining the reason for his pick, Mr Moon said through a spokesman that his chief of staff’s experiences and philosophy “would properly support the president’s will to improve South-North relations”.

CHUNG EUI-YONG, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL HEAD

Mr Chung, a former ambassador in Geneva, leads a special task force on diplomacy and foreign affairs. Earlier this month he met with Mr Trump’s envoy, National Security Council Senior Director Matt Pottinger, and is organising a summit between American and South Korean leaders for late June.

In an op-ed to rebut a Wall Street Journal column that Washington and Seoul could collide on North Korea issues, Mr Chung said both administrations mix pressure and dialogue in their approaches to the regime. There is “ample room for the US and South Korea to calibrate and plan their joint engagement with the North,” Mr Chung wrote.

Mr Chung will preside over an enlarged National Security Council, after Mr Moon doubled its size to 43 members to give it more power to oversee inter-Korea relations, diplomacy and national defence. Mr Chung has said that the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system deployed in South Korea “lacks procedural legitimacy”, but he has declined to say whether it should be removed.

SUH HOON, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE CHIEF

The 63-year-old was deeply involved in the coordination and negotiation of the previous two inter-Korea summits during his 28-year stint at the spy agency where he most recently led the North Korea intelligence division.

The president believes Mr Suh is the best person to guide the agency to “resolve the North’s nuclear issues and bring stability and peace to the Korean Peninsula”, Mr Moon’s spokesman said.

YANG MOO-JIN, UNIFICATION MINISTER CANDIDATE

The professor at the University of North Korean Studies was a key campaign adviser to Mr Moon on unification policies. He visited North Korea as part of the government’s delegation at a June 2000 summit.

In a guest contribution this month to a government-run website that explains policies, Mr Yang, 57, said the recovery of ties should start by re-opening a hotline between North and South Korea at the border village of Panmunjom. A test run of the hotline, which was cut off by North Korea last year, could lead to a “working-level contact and even to senior-level talks”, Mr Yang noted.

SONG YOUNG-GIL, UNIFICATION MINISTER CANDIDATE

Mr Song worked as an automobile welder and taxi driver before becoming a lawyer and a four-time lawmaker. He has criticised the former government’s decision to close a joint industrial park near the border. According to Mr Song, the shutdown isn’t hurting the Kim Jong-un regime because it only generates about 0.3 per cent of North Korea’s estimated gross domestic product.

Mr Song shares Mr Moon’s view that the deployment of Thaad in South Korea should be reviewed by the government and debated in parliament. BLOOMBERG