Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, was elected president of South Korea on Wednesday, defeating her liberal opponent, Moon Jae-in, and becoming the first female leader of the country.
While the campaigns of Park, of the conservative ruling Saenuri Party, and Moon, of the progressive opposition Democratic Unity Party, focused mainly on the slowing economy and other domestic economic issues, the candidates took significantly different lines on foreign policy, particularly when it came to North Korea.
“The main foreign policy difference that came out of the campaign was the pace and conceptual approach in dealing with North Korea,” Scott A. Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Trend Lines. “They both indicated that they wanted to engage North Korea in dialogue, but Park’s approach, albeit more generous than the current approach that the Lee Myung-bak administration is taking, is still essentially a conditions-based approach.”