문재인 정부의 대북정책: 특징과 과제

Moon Jae-in Government’s Policy on the Korean Peninsula: Characteristics and Tasks

This study aims to characterize the Moon Jae-in Government’s Policy on the Korean Peninsula, and to find out some tasks and expectations of the policy. The highest priority of the policy is peace, not reunification. Peace can be achieved, this policy assumes, by denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which in turn can be achieved by providing security of the North Korean regime. This policy is based on the liberalist perspective on the international politics, prefers a soft-landing to a hard-landing on the course of transition for opening North Korea. This emphasizes ‘engagement’ or carrot as the main policy means, but tries to maintain ‘pressure’ or stick until North Korea shows its willingness for denuclearization. This policy also maintains Korea-led initiative emphasizing inter-Korean reconciliations and cooperation. The strategy for denuclearization is a step-by-step and comprehensive approach based on ‘security-to-security exchange’ manner. The success of this policy depends on developing a ‘win-set’ for the exchange both North Korea and the United States. North Korea should neither try ‘peace with nuclear weapons,’nor the United States ‘unconditional surrender’ without providing North Korea’s regime stability. Here lies the Moon jae-in Government’s role by providing creative compromise proposals and promoting trust between the two.