As COVID-19 unmercifully sweeps through North Korea it may be the least of the hermit nation’s problems. South Korea’s newly elected conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, isn’t as tolerant as his liberally-minded predecessor who coddled the north’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to keep him in line. The new sheriff in town says, “no more.”
Unexpectedly, Yoon’s first order of business was not to meet with Kim to assure the two nations remain at ease with one another. In fact, Yoon said the first move is up to him. If Kim wants to meet he’ll go talk to the guy, but it’s up to N. Korea to initiate the request due to Yoon’s lack of interest.
This year alone N. Korea has already test-fired 15 missiles. This is greater than the combined total of the previous two years. Even with his citizens dying in record numbers, Kim Jong Un remains focused on his nation’s arsenal and is pushing through with plans to “strengthen and develop” its nuclear capabilities at the “highest possible” speed.
Yoon said S. Korea is standing by to thwart even the tiniest amount of aggression. They will no longer use the conciliatory strategy favored by the previous administration. “Just to escape temporarily North Korean provocation or conflict is not something that we should do. This kind of approach over the past five years has proven to be a failure,” he said.
Despite his tough-guy approach, Yoon doesn’t want his country’s northern nation to “collapse.” He would prefer the opposite.
“What I want is shared and common prosperity on the Korean Peninsula,” he said. But Yoon is using a new and different approach to achieve this. “I do not believe that enhancing [North Korea’s] nuclear capability is helpful and conducive to maintaining international peace.”
Jolting Joe Biden recently met with Yoon in Seoul to see how the two opposites would attract. Until now, and not totally unexpected, Biden has had yet to visit anywhere in Asia. He and Harris aren’t the traveling types.
Biden’s handlers instructed him to present Yoon with a sign that read, “The buck stops here,” in reference to a quote made famous by former U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
Placing the sign on his desk, Yoon said, “I don’t know how (Biden) knew that I like this statement.” We do. It’s because Biden’s puppeteers learn these things for him prior to pointing him in the right direction.
Be that as it may, the two leaders had a good chat. Yoon expressed a desire to step up U.S./South Korean military exercises in the Korean Peninsula as a deterrent to Kim Jong Un. Because he felt it was the best thing to do at the moment, Biden growled his agreeance through his pearly-white dentures.
Yoon said the increased military exercises will be for defensive purposes only. He said it’s “the basic duty of every military around the world to maintain their readiness,” and that it’s also important to make sure that readiness is well-known.
It’s anyone’s guess how Kim Jong Un is going to react to the news but it’s anticipated that he won’t take it well, and it’s doubtful that he’ll even consider backing off. It’s not his nature. He’s a complex little man.
But before the North Korean leader can figure out what he’s going to do he has to first stop his entire population from dying from a disease his isolated nation hasn’t the ability to control or stop. The problem might solve itself.
