North Korea keeps silent on Biden win

On left is North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un, and on right is Joe Biden, the president-elect of the United States. Yonhap

By Jung Da-min

North Korea has yet to report on the election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.

North Korea watchers said Pyongyang is expected to keep a prudent stance over Biden's election and his new administration, as it could take some time for his administration to draw up its North Korea policy.

They said North Korea will first want to see who the new U.S. administration appoints to handle issues with the reclusive state.

"North Korea has deliberately shown an indifferent attitude toward the U.S. presidential election, hardly making any comments on the election in its state media reports," said Cheong Seong-chang, a fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Wilson Center and a senior research fellow with the Seoul-based Sejong Institute. "However, I presume that the North Korean leadership has an extraordinary interest in this election internally, as a change in the U.S. administration could greatly affect the security environment of North Korea."

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Cheong said that the North could have been disappointed with the election result as the country's leader Kim Jong-un had a "special relationship with President Donald Trump." He said North Korea would not have had to worry about a dramatic worsening of bilateral relations between the countries if Trump had been reelected, but now it would have to worry about Biden strengthening sanctions to pressure it to move forward with denuclearization.

"North Korea will take a position of watching for a while, as internally, there are also many domestic difficulties such as the COVID-19 pandemic and flood damage," Cheong said. "In addition, North Korea is set to convene the eighth Congress of the country's ruling Workers Party of Korea in January next year. Until then, North Korea is expected to focus on economic recovery, while watching who will take over posts handling North Korea policies under the upcoming Biden administration and in what direction these policies are decided, especially through their representatives at the United Nations headquarters in New York."

So far, Biden has taken an offensive stance toward the North, criticizing its leader Kim and calling him a "thug" or a "dictator," while Pyongyang state media has denounced the president-elect in return, calling him a "mad rabid dog."

Other North Korea watchers, however, said that the North and the new Biden administration could engage in talks if Biden and the Democratic Party continue their policy of keeping channels for talks with their counterparts open.

"In the short term, there is the possibility that Biden will approach North Korea issues in a tighter way, while evaluating the previous U.S.-North Korean negotiations very carefully in the process of establishing a new policy emphasizing working-level negotiations in the early stages of talks," said Hong-min, the director of the North Korean Research Division at the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification.

"From a wider point of view, however, the Biden administration is expected to emphasize dialogue with North Korea and push ahead with comprehensive negotiations. In that situation, North Korea would also try to approach the negotiations with a long-term view rather than issuing short-term responses regarding Biden's election."

In 2008 when Barack Obama was elected, the North Korean media reported this two days after the victory was confirmed. But when Obama was reelected in 2012, it reported it three days afterward in a subdued tone, apparently because of the American president's "strategic patience" toward the North. When Trump was elected in 2016, it reported this after two days but called it only the "new administration" without mentioning the then president-elect's name.

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