In the spring of 2018, shortly after North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un declared that his country was in the “final stage” of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of attacking the United States, then-South Korean president Luna Jae In He decided to play the peacemaker.
When the two men first met in April, Moon found Kim softer than his reputation suggested.
“Intelligence or media reports portrayed him as an oppressive dictator and an imperious personality, but the Chairman Kim I knew had a completely different demeanor,” Moon writes in a recently published memoir. “He was very polite. He showed a natural respect towards his elders.”
In Moon's account, Kim seemed “sincere” about reaching a nuclear disarmament deal, saying he did not want his own daughter to live with nuclear weapons hanging over her head.
South Korean and U.S. military soldiers patrol during a rehearsal in 2019 to mark the first anniversary of a summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
(Ahn Young-joon / Associated Press)
The sympathetic portrait Moon offers in his instant bestseller, “From the Periphery to the Center,” a 656-page account of his foreign policy, has sparked a political furor here, with Moon's opponents accusing him of being misled.
“Former President Moon is truly Kim Jong Un's chief spokesman,” said Yoon Sang-hyun, a lawmaker from the conservative People Power Party, who won the presidency. in 2022, toppling Moon's Democratic Party.
Although Moon managed to bring together Kim and then-President Trump in three historic summits, those talks failed.
“When Kim Jong Un said he 'had no intention of using nuclear weapons,' former President Moon completely believed him,” Ahn Cheol-soo, another conservative lawmaker, wrote on social media. “But it has become clear that North Korea had no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons and was only interested in smiling to get what it wanted.”
Choi Jong-geon, who was Moon's vice foreign minister and plays a key role in the book, dismissed these criticisms as cheap political attacks.
Defending Moon's good faith engagement with Kim Jong Un as a “pragmatic and goal-oriented” form of diplomacy in an interview with local media, Choi pointed to instances where Moon offered due criticism of Kim and his regime.
Moon describes Kim's return to a hostile posture as a betrayal of the Korean people and condemns North Korea's dramatic demolition of a building the two governments once shared in a joint industrial zone as the behavior of a “thug nation.” ”.
Kim Jong Un is not the only controversial world leader to get a favorable second look in the memoir, as Moon recalls the surprisingly friendly relationship he had with Triumph.
“Despite some judgments about him as crude and impolite, I liked that he was sincere,” Moon writes.
Even during disagreements on issues such as trade either defense cost sharingremember, “there were never any hurt feelings.”
Moon's account speaks to the unique marriage of convenience that Trump represented for South Korean liberals who favor engagement with North Korea.
Many here remember Trump as a refreshing antidote to the hardline politics that have become the default norm in Washington.
Moon considered top Republicans too obsessed with regime change. In contrast, he wrote: “President Trump was not ideological at all. His thinking was practical: if the conditions were right, talks could be had and an agreement could be reached.”
Then-President Trump (left) meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (center) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone on June 30, 2019.
(Susan Walsh/Associated Press)
To convince Trump to meet with Kim Jong Un, Moon played on the US president's ego during a private moment at a US-South Korea summit in 2017, telling him that “if he were to achieve peaceful denuclearization, it would be an achievement that no one can achieve.” president – included President Obama – had achieved, and that without a doubt he would be granted the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Moon blamed the eventual breakdown of talks on Trump's advisers, including the former National Security Adviser. John Boltonwho once called for a preemptive military strike against North Korea.
A major obstacle, according to Moon, was Bolton's insistence that North Korea follow the “Libyan model” of nuclear disarmament, which did little to help sustain the Libyan leader. Moammar Gaddafi in power after it reached an agreement with the United States to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
In fact, after civil war broke out in Libya in 2011, Gaddafi was captured and killed by rebel forces in a military operation involving NATO forces.
To avoid that fate, North Korea has asked for a peace treaty with the United States as a condition of giving up its nuclear arsenal.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in pets a white Pungsan dog named Gomi from North Korea.
(South Korean Presidential Blue House via Associated Press)
Moon believed that a formal declaration to end the Korean War, which was only stopped with an armistice agreement in 1953, could be a starting point. But he writes that advisers like Bolton, who opposed the possibility on the grounds that it would weaken the U.S. military presence in the region, “continually stood in the way.”
Today, even as North Korea is believed to be preparing for its seventh nuclear test, many South Korean liberals still view the summits as a hopeful model for future denuclearization talks, according to Park Myung-lim, a historian at Yonsei University in Seoul.
“In the past, relations between South Korea and North Korea and those between the United States and North Korea tended to follow separate paths, with the former generally limited to economic or humanitarian cooperation and the latter dealing with denuclearization and military affairs,” Park said.
“The greatest significance of the memoir is how it shows how the three countries could overcome their differences and achieve the common goal of denuclearizing and establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula.”
