South KoreaThe new President Lee Jae-Myung swore on Wednesday to restart the resting talks with North Korea and to strengthen a trilateral partnership with the USA and Japan than he set the most important political goals for his individual, five-year term.
Lee, who advanced from poverty from childhood to become South Korea’s leading liberal politicians who promise to combat inequality and corruption Yoon Suk Yeol About his unfortunate Impose of war law At the end of last year.
In his opening speech at the National Assembly, Lee said that his government would deal with “strong deterrence” based on the South Korea-Military alliance with North Korean atomic threats and its potential military attachments. But he said he “opened a communication channel with North Korea and create peace on the Korean peninsula through conversations and cooperation”.
He said he would pursue pragmatic diplomacy with neighboring countries and strengthen trilateral cooperation with Seoul-Washington-Tokyo.
“Through pragmatic diplomacy based on national interests, we will make the crisis an opportunity to maximize our national interests through the most important change in global economic and security landscapes,” said Lee.
Security and economic challenges lie ahead of us
It was unclear whether Lee’s choice would cause a large, immediate change in South Korea’s foreign policy. Lee, who was previously accused by the critics to tip China and North Korea and not outside the USA and Japan, recently repeatedly emphasized South Korea’s alliances with the United States as the basis of his foreign policy and avoided all the controversial comments on his views of his views of the USA and Japan.
“We now have to see whether the pressure of office will lead to Lee Jae-Myung from the center of the center-at least with regard to national security and the alliance with the United States,” said Ankit Panda, an expert from the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace.
“It is difficult to predict with absolute certainty how he will deal with the USA, North Korea, Japan and China because he has changed its position so much,” said Duyeon Kim, Senior Analyst at Washington’s center for new American security. “We can expect tensions if his government does not match Washington’s approach to China and Japan.”
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The toughest external challenges that are waiting for Lee are the tariff policy of US President Donald Trump and the growing military partnerships of North Korea with Russia. But experts used to say whoever becomes president cannot do much to make great progress in South Korea’s favor in these questions.
USA, Japan and China react
The United States and Japan said they congratulated Lee’s choice and expressed their obligations to develop three-way cooperation.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that he wanted to have summit talks with Lee “as early as possible” and hopes to promote bilateral ties both publicly and commercially. The US State Department said that Seoul and Washington share an “iron obligation” to the Allianz.
The Chinese President Xi Jinping also sent Lee a message of congratulations and said Beijing was ready to work with Seoul in order to advance their cooperative partnership for the benefit of the peoples of the federal states, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.
It is unclear how North Korea would react to Lee’s speech because it has avoided any discussions with South Korea and the USA since 2019. North Korea has delivered weapons and troops in recent years to support Russia against Ukraine, and South Korea, the American partner, suspects that Russia in return in the opposite of the high-tech technologies to broadcast North Korea.
Russia’s Tass News Agency said on Wednesday that Sergu Shoigu, civil servant of Russian security, has arrived in Pyongy for a meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the recent sign of the state’s booming exchange.
Lee said he would support Trump’s steps to restart nuclear diplomacy with Kim Jong Un as part of the efforts to deal with North Korea. North Korea did not react publicly to Trump’s reach.
“Lee and Trump would personally want to resume dialogue with Kim Jong Un. But North Korea has no incentive to speak to Washington or Seoul,” said Duyeon Kim, the analyst. “Pyongyang has supported Beijing and Moscow both politically and economically and can buy a lot of time to further perfect its nuclear weapons.”
Later on Wednesday, Lee nominated the former unification minister Lee Jong-Seok, a pigeon that favors a greater approach to North Korea as a spy chief with North Korea. The nomination is probably related to Lee Jae-Myung’s hope of reopening talks, since the national secret service previously played a role behind the backdrop to promote the connections to North Korea.
Lee Jae-Myung also nominated his most important political ally and experienced legislator Kim Min-Seok as prime minister, the government’s job. Lee is expected to nominate other top cabinet members in the coming days.
South Korea still stands against the political gap
Lee called on the unit to deal with the strong political gap of the country, which after the debacle of Yoon’s law and said that he would “answer the ceremonial call to the people, to bloom hops over depth and painful wounds”.
Lee still promised a thorough investigation of the circumstances in connection with Yoon’s Martial Law Lawing and described it as a “rebellion that confiscated the sovereignty of people with weapons”.
Lee said that the revival of slowing down domestic economy would have its top priority and that his government would immediately start an emergency-task force to lead a “frontal fight” against the threats of recession. He also promised more aggressive government spending to promote economic activity.
The South Korean central bank last week reduced its most important interest rate and reduced its growth prospects to 0.8 percent in 2025, since it was about Trump’s tariff hikes and the weak domestic demand was deteriorated by the latest political turbulence.
Lee also confirmed his campaign promises to reduce inequality, and said that “the polarization driven by inequality now disabled further growth”.
Lee’s term of office immediately started without the usual two -month transition period after the national election commission had formally confirmed its election victory. Before his inauguration, Lee visited the national cemetery in Seoul, for the late Korean leaders, patriots and war dead who are buried there, and he had a call with a common chairman of the chief of staff, Kim Myung-Soo, a telephone call to request military willingness to be able to be able to aggressions.
–Associated Press Writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Simina Mistrenu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.
