Seoul asked to speak up over Pyongyang's military threats

President Moon Jae-in speaks in a weekly regular meeting with senior presidential aides at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. Yonhap

By Lee Min-hyung

While U.S. President Donald Trump and President Moon Jae-in have intentionally underestimated the significance of North Korea's missile launches, conducted to protest joint Washington-Seoul exercises, Moon's “strategic silence” over Pyongyang's military provocations needs to be adjusted to some degree.

Since the very beginning in the denuclearization talks, the President has been actively embracing the risks of “personal diplomacy” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, persuading him to meet with President Trump. The outcomes of two of the three Kim-Trump meetings weren't substantial but quite satisfactory as the leaders understood each other's position on denuclearization.

President Moon deserves to get more credit than he's likely to get over his consistent commitment and willingness to keep the momentum for the nuclear disarmament talks alive.

His active use of personal diplomacy in the Korea peace process is his style and an approach that breaks from past traditions. But one of the key points is that there are risks as well; leaders don't always get along. Sometimes, miscalculation and tension are as likely as understanding and cooperation.

Now, concerns are President Moon's personal diplomacy with the North Korean leader has been put to the test following a series of launches of short-range ballistic missiles and new types of projectiles by the North.

What is much more worrisome is the ongoing attitude from the government toward the provocations and the North's apparent move to downplay Seoul's efforts in the process. North Korea recently rejected Moon's Liberation Day call to rekindle inter-Korean talks by saying it had “no intention” to resume dialogue with the South even after the ending of the joint Washington-Seoul exercises.

“Does [President Moon] have any place to talk about dialogue atmosphere, peaceful economy and peace-keeping mechanism? We have nothing to talk any more with the South Korean authorities nor have any idea to sit with them again,” an English-language version of a statement released by the North's official Korean Central News Agency read.

While Moon differs from his predecessors in the relationships he promotes and the way he approaches personal diplomacy, praising and embracing the North Korean leader will cost a lot if his relationship with Kim gets worse.

From this perspective, the government should at least outwardly display a gesture of tightening military readiness against the repeated missile threats from the North. Any weakness in Seoul's military readiness will serve North Korea's aims of diminishing the American military presence on the Korean Peninsula, which would not be good in terms of maintaining a regional power balance in Northeast Asia.

President Moon didn't pay much attention to the need to enhance security readiness to brace for any possibly of forthcoming missile threats from the North, apparently as he does not hope to provoke the North and stop the mood for dialogue.

For this reason, the government needs to focus more on ensuring security, while at the same time taking steps toward the nuclear disarmament of the peninsula.