[Column] Biden is moving toward crisis on Korean Peninsula

Posted on : 2021-05-04 17:08 KST Modified on : 2021-05-04 17:08 KST
Suh Jae-jung
Suh Jae-jung

By Suh Jae-jung, professor of political science and international relations at the International Christian University in Tokyo

“America is on the move again,” said US President Joe Biden on Wednesday in his first address to the joint houses of Congress since taking office.

Biden was following up on his declaration in his inaugural address that “America is back.”

Biden has reason to make that claim. His administration has indeed made a lot of moves during its first hundred days. But what direction is the US headed in?

Immediately upon taking office, Biden quickly reversed policies that Trump had implemented. He said the US would rejoin the World Health Organization, from which Trump had withdrawn, and promised to pay US$200 million in back dues. Biden returned to the Paris Climate Agreement and organized a climate summit attended by the leaders of 40 countries.

Biden has also made a 180-degree pivot away from the unilateral foreign policy line taken by the Trump administration, under its mantra of “America first.” Biden is focusing on dialogue and cooperation with his allies while prioritizing diplomacy and negotiations. Such movements are quite different from those taken by the Trump administration.

Biden has made even bolder moves in his domestic policy. He’s announced an ambitious plan to invest US$2.3 trillion in rebuilding social infrastructure. Just as ambitious is the American Families Plan, which would cost US$1.8 trillion.

Biden has promised to boldly invest in education by providing free preschool to all children aged three and four and to improve the quality of life of ordinary Americans. He has also called for the construction of a more equitable society by pursuing sweeping reforms on major social issues, including police brutality, racism, sexism, and immigration.

Biden is even pushing for regulations on guns, a particularly challenging issue. He’s moving to breathe new life into American democracy.

But the Republican Party is firmly opposed to many of these initiatives, and some of them are even facing pushback from inside the Democratic Party. So while the Biden administration is moving, it’s unclear whether the US government will.

There are also some areas in which the Biden administration isn’t moving. So far, he hasn’t returned to the Iran nuclear deal – officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – from which the Trump administration withdrew.

To be sure, Biden has launched negotiations about that. But he hasn’t lifted either the economic sanctions that the Trump administration reinstated when it left the deal or other sanctions added later. So in practical terms, Biden hasn’t made any changes.

Despite Biden’s campaign pledge to bring an end to “forever wars,” his plan to pull troops out of Afghanistan pushed back the Trump administration’s timetable. In the Middle East, the US is still exporting weapons to such countries as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

That gives ammo to hawks who are busily scheming to scuttle the negotiations with Iran and to obstruct the withdrawal from Afghanistan. If the Biden administration doesn’t move, other groups will.

In his speech, Biden lumped together Iran and North Korea, claiming their “nuclear programs […] present serious threats to American security and the security of the world.”

“We’re going to be working closely with our allies to address the threats posed by both of these countries through diplomacy, as well as stern deterrence,” Biden said.

Does Biden mean that he’ll return to diplomacy but won’t make substantive moves regarding North Korea, just as he’s doing with Iran? Is that a new move?

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki elaborated on his words. “Our goal remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Psaki said, papering over the fact that the “stern deterrence” mentioned by Biden is the threat of a nuclear attack on North Korea.

Psaki added that the US has “a clear understanding that the efforts of the past four administrations have not achieved this objective.”

The Biden administration later explained that it will adopt a “practical approach” and that it seeks practical progress on the security of the US and its allies. Does this mean that the US will be adopting a pragmatic line of focusing on security based on the US’s nuclear arsenal, given the difficulty of achieving denuclearization?

The Washington Post was the first to report that the Biden administration had completed its North Korea policy review. An anonymous government official quoted by the newspaper said that the Biden administration has adopted “a calibrated, practical approach to diplomacy with the North with the goal of eliminating the threat to the United States.”

But that official also hinted at a lack of confidence in that policy. “We do not think what we are contemplating is likely to forestall provocation from the North,” the official said.

Of course, the official was also aware of why that was the case: “We fully intend to maintain sanctions pressure.”

While the Biden administration isn’t disavowing the agreement that the Trump administration reached with North Korea at Singapore, the anonymous official, Psaki and Biden aren’t talking about establishing new relations with the North or about building a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. They’re only emphasizing the failure of all previous agreements, including the one in Singapore.

Doesn’t that mean the Biden administration is moving toward a crisis on the Korean Peninsula?

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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