New South Korean president to try a different tack with North Korea

For five years, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has cajoled his immediate neighbor to talk and encouraged cross-border exchanges. He has offered assistance to Pyongyang and promised more if only Kim Jong Un would halt his development of nuclear weapons.

Elected in 2017 with high hopes, Moon's efforts have been to no avail.

Now, after the deeply conservative Yoon Suk-yeol won the presidential election to succeed Moon, analysts anticipate a very different bilateral dynamic.

The fear is that the two nations will return to outright confrontation rather than the uneasy coexistence that has characterized Moon's administration.

"Yoon has revived the conservatives' principled approach toward North Korea, which means he will be tougher by calling out and punishing provocative and illegal actions while keeping the door open to dialogue and diplomacy," said Duyeon Kim, a Seoul-based adjunct senior fellow for the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.

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