By Tomoyuki Tachikawa,
The victory of conservative main opposition candidate Yoon Suk Yeol in South Korea's presidential race Wednesday is expected to further undermine the possibility of North Korea giving up its nuclear arsenal, jeopardizing regional security and stability.
With Seoul having failed to act as an intermediary to facilitate denuclearization negotiations between North Korea and the United States under President Moon Jae In of the liberal ruling Democratic Party, Pyongyang is unlikely to cozy up to the South under the new president for the time being.
Instead, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is expected to continue testing the country's strategic weapons, including longer-range ballistic missiles, in a bid to pressure the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to ease economic sanctions on Pyongyang.
Kim believes Seoul has no influence to "move" Washington, a diplomatic source in Beijing said, adding there would be "no impetus" for him to sit at the negotiating table with Yoon.
Moreover, Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine has forced the United States to turn away from the situation in East Asia, giving North Korea a "window of opportunity" to carry out military provocations, the source said.
Criticizing Moon, Yoon, a former top prosecutor, has committed to taking a tougher stance toward the North, while vowing to place emphasis on South Korea's alliance with the United States.
For around two years through 2020, Pyongyang promoted talks with Seoul, hoping that South Korea's left-wing government under Moon, who took office in May 2017, would be able to persuade the United States to shift away from what the North calls a "hostile" policy.
In November 2017, North Korea launched what it said was its "most powerful" intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to anywhere in the continental United States, following its sixth nuclear test in September that year.
The U.N. Security Council, including China and Russia that are friendly to Pyongyang, strengthened sanctions on North Korea, dealing a crushing blow to its economy.
In his New Year's address in 2018, Kim suddenly extended an olive branch to South Korea, saying he would prepare for the North's participation in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics hosted by the South in February that year.
North Korea formally declared in April 2018, about a week ahead of an inter-Korean summit, that it would discontinue nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
At the summit meeting later that month, Kim and Moon signed the Panmunjeom Declaration, in which they pledged to establish a joint liaison office in the North's border city of Kaesong and cease all hostile acts. Afterward, the two leaders held talks twice in 2018.
Kim also met with Biden's predecessor Donald Trump in June 2018 at the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit, with the two agreeing that Washington would provide security guarantees to Pyongyang in exchange for "complete" denuclearization of the North.
However, Kim began to insist later that the United States had not implemented the agreement, despite North Korea taking concrete steps to discard its nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang's negotiations with Washington have been stalled for more than two years.
North Korea has recently hinted it could restart nuclear and ICBM tests, saying it may resume all "activities" it had temporarily suspended to build trust with Trump, while launching a number of ballistic missiles in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Construction is also occurring at North Korea's only known nuclear test site for the first time since the announcement of its closure in 2018, a U.S. nuclear expert said Monday based on commercial satellite photos.
The United States and North Korea remain technically in a state of war as the 1950-1953 Korean War, in which U.S.-led U.N. forces fought alongside South Korea against the North supported by China and the Soviet Union, ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
With tensions between North Korea and the United States escalating, inter-Korean relations have deteriorated.
Kim was irritated by Seoul as Moon hesitated to move forward on economic cooperation projects with Pyongyang, including reviving operations at the Kaesong industrial park, in the face of opposition from Washington, observers said.
In June 2020, Pyongyang blew up the liaison office in Kaesong, a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, in retaliation for defectors launching balloons carrying leaflets critical of the North.
"At that moment, Kim cut off ties with South Korea," another diplomatic source said.
Although Moon has sought a declaration to formally bring an end to the state of war on the divided peninsula since 2021, it is "no longer possible for an agreement to be reached," given that Kim distrusts South Korea, the source added.
The North showed an interest last year in formally ending the war, but Troy Stangarone, a senior director at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, said Pyongyang only wanted to use the process to "extract sanctions relief without making progress on denuclearization or other issues."
Meanwhile, China, North Korea's closest and most influential ally, is expected to avoid worsening relations with the two Koreas in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party's twice-a-decade congress in the fall, foreign affairs experts said.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping has been keen to bolster his clout to secure a controversial third term as the nation's leader at the party gathering, he is certain to pursue balanced diplomacy with Seoul and Pyongyang, they said.
In South Korea, anti-China sentiment has been spreading since a performer clad in a traditional Korean "hanbok" dress appeared in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics through Feb. 20 representing ethnic Koreans in China.
Some South Korean people regarded it as cultural appropriation by China.
In an obvious bid to prevent the deterioration of ties with South Korea, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a press conference on Monday, "A good neighbor is worth 1,000 pieces of gold."
As for North Korea, Wang said China calls on the United States to take "concrete measures to address the legitimate security concerns" of Pyongyang and "build basic mutual trust."
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FOCUS: Yoon likely to warm up Tokyo-Seoul ties but wartime issues to weigh
