The Moon Jae-in administration should show a decisive but coolheaded response to North Korea's moves to cut off ties with the South and escalate tensions. This is easier said than done; yet Seoul needs to refrain from responding in kind to the North's provocations and military threats.
It seems as if Pyongyang is trying to test President Moon's patience by lambasting him and his government with harsh rhetoric and insults. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo-jong, has gone too far not only in taking hostile action against the South but also in slinging mud at our President.
That is why the presidential office hit back at her irrational and preposterous verbal attacks. On Wednesday, Yoon Doo-han, senior presidential secretary for public relations, warned that Seoul would not tolerate the North's “senseless” words and actions anymore. The warning came after Kim slammed Moon for what she called the “impudence and vileness” in his speech marking the 20th anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
Kim made the attack a day after the North demolished the inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Gaeseong where a joint industrial complex is located. The demolition of the office, a symbolic achievement of President Moon's policy of active engagement with the North, signals that Pyongyang is turning the clock back to hostility and confrontation. It also represents the North destroying mutual trust built on his peace initiative.
More irritating is that Kim Yo-jong unilaterally divulged Moon's request to send a special envoy to Pyongyang to discuss ways of defusing rising tensions on the peninsula. She rebuffed the request, dismissing it as a farce. Kim should not have done such a thing as the first vice department director of the Workers' Party Central Committee. She only demeaned herself by revealing her absence of diplomatic etiquette.
We urge the North to stop any further acts of ramping up tensions and implementing its threats of military action. The North Korean regime must take full responsibility for returning to its outdated brinkmanship tactics. It has nothing to gain from its hostile acts. Instead it has much to lose from the vicious cycle of raising tensions, returning to dialogue and extracting concessions.
Now, the Moon government should send a clear message to the North that these old ways will no longer work. The North must be held accountable for dragging its feet on the denuclearization that Kim promised during his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. The Kim regime should not take its frustration and anger out on the South. Instead it should keep its promises faithfully.
President Moon also needs to overhaul his engagement policy toward the North. Moon and his diplomacy and security staff are under criticism for having too optimistic a view about inter-Korean ties and the North's move toward denuclearization. Overt optimism without any foundation is a recipe for failure. So it is time to check the shortcomings of his policy and work out a new strategy to find an exit from the ongoing crisis. The government must consider changing its security and diplomatic lineup to better cope with the worsening situation.