South Korea's new President may turn to peace & reconciliation

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Thu, 11 May 2017 12:44 UTC

South Korean President Moon Jae-in

Could the winds of change be blowing through South Korea?

This week South Korea held an election to replaced the impeached former President Park Geun-hye. Whereas President Park was militantly pro-America, the new President, Moon Jae-in campaigned on a platform of peace and reconciliation.

In no way is President Moon anti-American, but instead he favours an approach whereby South Korea might work more closely with important regional countries in the region like China, in addition to maintaining good relations with Washington.

One of the biggest issues for the new President will be whether to keep the US made THAAD Missile System which is currently operational and stationed in South Korea.

According to Victor Gao from the China National Association of International Studies,

"I think the staunch alliance between the US and the Republic of Korea is expected to stay, but that doesn't mean the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in ROK by the US is the right decision. It completely antagonises China, as well as Russia. And keeping the THAAD system in South Korea will do more harm than any good for the people in South Korea, and eventually, the US is not going to gain anything. Therefore it is time for the new president in Seoul to rethink about how to deal with a THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea ... I think the key questions are between North Korea and the United States. Therefore, South Korea is doing the right thing under the leadership of President Moon to position itself in a more conciliatory tone to DPRK through peaceful dialog with each other rather than warmongering".

Moon is generally seen as a proponent of the so-called 'Sunshine Policy' which was generally perused by South Korea between 1998 and 2008.

Moon who won with over 41% of the vote in a field of three major candidates, now has a mandate to shift the bellicose stance of his predecessor and work towards a policy of reconciliation, one which would manifestly benefit the wider region. Just how far he might pursue such policies remains to be seen.

Comment: As Andrew Korybko wrote, under Moo Jae-In South Korea now has a chance to 'earn its rightful place in the Multipolar Century':

South Korea, by virtue of its geographic position, always does best whenever it balances between East and West. For example, one of the main reasons why the country became an Asian Tiger in the first place is because its location allowed it to skillfully manage cheap Chinese labor and hefty amounts of Japanese capital, which proved to be the winning formula that South Korea needed in order to develop during the strict leadership of General Park. Everything was running smoothly enough until Seoul committed to hosting THAAD, and the system actually began to be deployed on its soil just recently, which both Beijing and Moscow viewed as setting a precedent for further anti-missile deployments that could eventually undercut their nuclear second-strike capabilities. Russia isn't in a position to influence South Korea, but China definitely is, and Beijing's economic countermeasures against Seoul (which for all intents and purposes could be regarded as "unofficial sanctions") have had a noticeable impact on its economy.