A lot to unpack in Moon Jae-in's new year press meeting. I read some of the takes on Twitter criticizing Moon for his over-optimism re NK denucl and his take that Biden should take it from where Trump had left.

[文 신년회견-일문일답 전문]③외교·안보 분야 https://www.newsis.com/view?id=NISX20210118_0001309078

I don't think there's over-optimism and rainbows and unicorns in Moon's answers regarding NK denuke and US-NKorea talks. In fact, if anything, it's a pragmatic assessment of the situation that took into consideration all factors incl Trump bungling Hanoi and thereafter.

Re: NK will denuke. Journalists pushed Moon on the probability of NK denuking esp after their recent military parade. Moon interpreted NK's declaration to strengthen nuke cap to failure at Hanoi.

According to Moon, Singapore decl provided the basic framework for denuking NK and Hanoi was meant for US-NK to agree on the specifics of denuking NK. But we all know about no-deal Hanoi. Moon interprets recent NK claim to strengthen nuke cap to the Hanoi fiasco.

So if Biden admin were to take off from Singapore declaration, meaning to work out with NK the specifics of denuking and override talking points at Hanoi, Moon thinks there's a chance that progress will be made.

In other words, this isn't the same as advocating Biden admin to copy-and-paste Trump admin approach to talks with NK. Moon recognizes very well that Biden admin prefers a bottom-up approach to denuke talks (=sort out specifics at working level, not at summit level).

Re: declaring end of war. Moon specifies that denuclearization has to come first before establishing a peace regime via peace agreement between US-NK, inter-Korea, or US-SK-NK.

Re: Inter-Korea relations. Inter-Kr cooperation (mostly humanitarian) takes place within int'l sanction constraints. Kim could visit Seoul but inter-Kr summit will not take place unless there're viable talking pts. IOW, next summit won't be held for photo-ops.

Re: ROK-US relations. Again, Moon's pragmatic. Moon lauds Biden for FP experience and knowledge esp wrt Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine policy (which IMO could be interpreted as Moon's over-optimism about US-NK relations under Biden).

Moon recognizes ROK-US having common interests (e.g. preference for multilateralism, recognizing imptance of trad alliances). I.e. Thinks bilateral relations will improve depending on whether and how quickly US "recovers" from its domestic political issues.

But IMO there're two points which show Moon's overtly optimistic views: 1) repeated meetings with Kim Jong-un will help build inter-Kr trust; 2) S Korea could persuade the US to sign a peace agreement with NKorea or est a peace regime in Korea Peninsula.

To summarize SKorea's diplomatic tasks based on Moon's presser: 1) To persuade the US to prioritize NKorea issues in USFP; 2) To resolve historical disputes w/ Japan via diplomacy; 3) To strengthen cooperation with China (& NEAsian countries) on non-trad security issues.