How Will Lee Jae-myung Approach North Korea?

In the wake of the Constitutional Court’s removal of Yoon Suk-yeol from office, Lee Jae-myung, who had been defeated by Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, assumed the presidency on June 4 after winning a snap election.

After months of political chaos stemming from Yoon’s illegal martial law declaration in December 2024, a experienced politician is now ruling South Korea. Lee’s administrative capability has been touted by his supporters and he succeeded in taking full control of the liberal Democratic Party despite his 2022 election loss. Now it’s his turn to tackle the country’s security challenges, especially those posed by North Korea.

Traditionally, the South’s liberal governments have adopted a dovish approach toward North Korea, centered on dialogue and peace, in order to entice the Kim regime to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Whenever a conservative president takes office, however, policy shifts to adopt a hawkish stance on North Korea. The result has been a glaring lack of consistency in Seoul’s North Korea strategy.

There was a brief period of hope that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula might actually move forward. In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore; the next year they met again in Hanoi, Vietnam. Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet with the North Korean leader largely due to the active mediation of then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal icon seeking to construct peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Previous U.S. presidents had been reluctant to negotiate with Pyongyang directly, which ultimately provided North Korea with enough time to build up its nuclear weapons. To break that pattern, Seoul explicitly flattered Trump – even raising the idea of the Nobel Peace Prize should he persuade Kim to give up his nuclear weapons – as a way to keep Trump’s interest in direct negotiations with the autocratic leader in North Korea.

However, in Hanoi the negotiations broke down due to Trump’s decision not to accept a so-called “small” deal. Rather than taking incremental steps, he sought to resolve North Korea’s nuclear threats in one go – and gave up once that effort proved impossible.

Regardless of outside pundits and observers’ skeptical views, in Hanoi Kim showed his willingness to dissolve one of his country’s biggest nuclear complexes if Trump lifted the devastating economic sanctions imposed by the United States. However, Kim was forced to return to his country without any achievements following the breakdown of the Hanoi summit. Since then, Kim has beefed up his nuclear capability while forging a military alliance with Russia. He also made clear that his nuclear weapons are no longer a bargaining chip, while vowing to consolidate his power by developing more, and more advanced, nuclear weapons. There has not been any dialogue on resuming the stalled nuclear talks, either between the two Koreas or between North Korea and the United States, in five years.

Many analysts predict that Lee’s policy on North Korea will reflect those of his liberal predecessors. However, the style and details of his North Korea approach may be quite different.

Pragmatism

When Lee assumed the presidency, he made clear that his top priority would be to revive South Korea’s economy, which struggled in the wake of Yoon’s martial law declaration. To soothe concerns that Lee would balloon South Korea’s budget in a bid to revive the economy, the new president repeatedly emphasized that his decisions will follow “pragmatism” – meaning he will not pour out national resources if it aggravates the country’s financial system.

This emphasis on “pragmatism” will likely apply to his policy on North Korea as well.

Within a week of taking office, Lee ordered the military to pause all loudspeaker broadcasts across the inter-Korean border. The loudspeaker broadcasting has typically been carried out under conservative governments while liberal governments usually suspended it. This move was a clear demonstration of Lee’s will to avoid any unnecessary tension on the Korean Peninsula. Also, as the residents living near the inter-Korean border have consistently complained about the gruesome noise caused by the North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts, his decision was not just an attempt to foster a peaceful mood with North Korea but a way of addressing public complaints.

More importantly, continuing the operation of the loudspeaker broadcasts was not a productive option for Lee. If there was any evidence that the broadcasts had succeeded in creating some significant conflicts within North Korea, Lee might have not ordered a pause. However, in the new president’s mind the growing tensions and the high costs to the South Korean residents living near the inter-Korean border outweighed the unknown effect of spreading anti-North Korea information to North Korean soldiers. Continuing the broadcasts simply did not match with his emphasis on pragmatism.

Despite that early olive branch, it’s unlikely that Lee will seek direct negotiations with Kim in the upcoming months. Instead, Lee will likely wait to hear Pyongyang’s messages, conveyed via official and unofficial communication channels, while he focuses his attention on handling more urgent domestic issues such as pursuing accountability for the martial law episode and reviving the country’s economy. Also, given the wars between Israel and Iran, and Ukraine and Russia – and North Korea’s close relations with Russia and Iran – it is simply not the right time for Lee to engage in dialogue with Kim.

In sum, there is a high possibility that the new administration will not rush to implement dovish policies on North Korea. After the early, but minor, overture of halting loudspeaker broadcasts, Lee is likely to adopt a wait-and-see approach, calibrating any outreach based on North Korea’s actions.

The U.S. and China

Unlike conservative presidents, the liberal presidents of South Korea have widely been assessed as less friendly to Washington. In light of longstanding concerns over liberal presidents, Lee repeatedly made clear that he will consolidate ties with the United States and strengthen the bilateral military alliance between the two countries. However, Lee has also mentioned the importance of managing relations with China – not only for the country’s economy (China is South Korea’s largest export market) but also as a tactic in dealing with North Korea’s growing threats.

While president, Yoon explicitly demonstrated anti-China sentiments through his speeches. For him, strengthening the alliance with the U.S. was the best – if not the only – option for Seoul to effectively tackle North Korea’s nuclear threats. Some conservatives in South Korea supported his moves, but Lee questioned Yoon’s approach, considering Beijing’s influence over Pyongyang and the importance of relations between South Korea and China for both sides.

Lee sees China as a country South Korea should work with, regardless of the difference in political systems between the two. The new president and his team will seek to widen South Korea’s diplomatic options as much as they can, so that the country can efficiently address any unexpected challenges.

Given the close ties between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin following Pyongyang’s explicit support for Russia’s war with Ukraine, Chinahas been somewhat sidelined in the security challenges in the region. However, we should not assume that Beijing’s power and influence in Pyongyang have vanished. Despite Russia’s increased economic support, North Korea’s economy is still heavily dependent on China. Without China’s economic assistance, it would be impossible for the Kim regime to maintain its dictatorship in North Korea.

Pyongyang clearly hopes to work with Moscow more, as Putin is more supportive of transferring sensitive military technologies to North Korea than China’s leader, Xi Jinping. But Beijing’s influence on North Korea remains strong. This is the main reason for Lee to restore relations with China, in case he needs to ask Beijing to play a key role in future negotiations.

Nuclear Freeze

Officially, Lee will support the common goal of the United States and South Korea, which is “the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” However, Lee will likely show his flexibility as a negotiator if there are other options that can lead the Kim regime to take steps toward dismantling its nuclear arsenal.

Based on the collapse of the Hanoi summit, Lee may focus on persuading Trump to abandon his idea of resolving the North’s nuclear threats through one “big deal.” To do so, Lee’s strategy may be to seek a “nuclear freeze” for North Korea – which is the only option Pyongyang might show some interest in at the moment. Rather than pressuring Kim to give up his nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting economic sanctions against his country, Lee would prefer devising a long-term plan for constructing peace on the Korean Peninsula. If Washington accepts this recalibrated approach for addressing North Korea’s nuclear weapons – from seeking denuclearization to pursuing a nuclear freeze – Lee would start finding room to reactivate inter-Korean relations.

And this option has has increased in likelihood since Lee appointed Wi Sung-rak, a former South Korean ambassador to Russia, as his national security adviser. Wi is a well-known diplomat whose approaches on diplomatic and security challenges – including North Korea, China, Japan, and Russia – are considered “pragmatic.”

In sum, Lee’s pragmatism will be reflected through his policies on North Korea – which will be different from what previous liberal presidents did. Emphasizing the importance of dialogue and peace, Lee will primarily focus on defusing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Rather than sticking with “mission impossible” – the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which every South Korean president has failed to achieve – Lee will likely seek to persuade Trump to make a deal with Kim for the nuclear freeze of North Korea as a first step. The goal will be for the two Koreas to move forward to make a Korean Peninsula where they have no reason to fight each other.