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Moon Chung-in

After Moon Chung-in, President Moon Jae-in’s special advisor on unification, foreign affairs and national security, said that South Korea and the US could discuss the idea of scaling back the South Korea-US joint military drills if North Korea suspended its nuclear weapons and missile activity, the Blue House asked Moon Chung-in to “exercise restraint” on June 19, explaining that such remarks “were not helpful for South Korea-US relations.” After the Blue House distanced itself from the remarks the previous day by saying that they were “only his personal opinion as a scholar and had not been previously cleared with us,” it has now gone one step further by issuing what is basically a public warning. After Moon Chung-in’s remarks during a visit to the US created a stir in Washington political circles shortly before the South Korea-US summit on June 29 and 30, the Blue House has resorted to even tougher language to stress that his remarks are at odds with the Blue House’s official position.

“Someone in a position of responsibility contacted Moon Chung-in today and spoke to him sternly about how [his recent remarks] were not helpful for South Korea-US relations,” a senior official told reporters during a meeting at the Blue House on June 19. Given the context of the remarks, the official who communicated the Blue House’s opinion to Moon Chung-in was probably National Security chief Chung Eui-yong. “There was definitely no advance coordination with the Blue House during Moon Chung-in’s visit to the US. While Moon met with Chung Eui-yong prior to his trip to the US and shared his views, Chung understood that these were just his own personal ideas,” the official said. When asked about Moon‘s meeting with Chung, the official flatly declared that “the meeting was a chance for them to greet each other, and they were not supposed to be arranging what Moon would say while he was in the US.”

The reason the Blue House used such blunt language to distance itself from Moon Chung-in’s remarks is because of concerns that, unless it quickly dispels the awkwardness between the US and South Korea resulting from the dispute over the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system, the first South Korea-US summit since Moon Jae-in’s inauguration could end up showing that the two countries are out of sync. While what Moon Chung-in said was that North Korea halting its nuclear weapons and missile activity could be linked to scaling back South Korea-US joint military exercises, the fact that these remarks could be misconstrued as meaning that South Korea-US military exercises could be suspended in exchange for North Korea postponing its nuclear tests appears to have put the Blue House on alert. This evokes China’s proposal about the “dual suspension” of North Korea’s nuclear testing and the South Korea-US exercises.

“It’s true that if North Korea is to suspend its nuclear weapon and missile development and to engage in dialogue, we’ll need to make a corresponding offer,” said a key official who has participated in a group that advises Moon Jae-in on diplomacy and security matters. “But what’s clear is that Moon Chung-in’s remarks are not something he ought to be saying in the US at the present moment.”

In regard to newspaper reports on June 8 claiming that US President Donald Trump lost his temper about the delay of the THAAD deployment in South Korea during a meeting at the White House, the senior Blue House official said that “this matter has been cleared up.” “It appears to be true that the Americans were upset about US media reports that only examined part of the [Blue House’s] briefings on THAAD and implied that we were postponing [the THAAD deployment]. Since then, we have used several channels to explain our position, and I understand that this matter has been cleared up,” the official said.

By Lee Se-young, staff reporter

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