Analysts Expect North Korea to Test New ROK President with Provocations

You don’t need to be an analyst to predict that the Kim regime is going to test and see what they can get away with from the incoming Yoon administration. This is the standard playbook from the Kim regime:

Amid signs of North Korea abandoning its self-restraint in regards to testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s pledge to take a tougher stance and bolster South Korea’s deterrence against its northern neighbor ― in close cooperation with the United States ― is likely to prolong the period of non-engagement between the two Koreas under his new administration.

Furthermore, Yoon has filled the foreign policy subcommittee of his transition team with officials from the former Lee Myung-bak government, who pursued confrontational policies that almost pushed the two Koreas to the brink of war. 

With the new conservative administration to be inaugurated in May, Pyongyang is likely to test how much bandwidth the Yoon administration will allow in dealing with its provocative actions, and diplomatic observers say how the new government responds to this initial saber-rattling will set the tone for inter-Korean interactions for the next five years.

“Relations between the two Koreas once President-elect Yoon takes office will entirely depend on Pyongyang,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London.

“If North Korea goes down the test route, then I would expect the Yoon government to focus on deterrence, sanctions and denunciation of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses above all. This would strain relations,” he said.

Korea Times

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