President Moon’s Korea Peace Initiative has faced mixed results and daunting challenges, but there are no better options.

Given North Korea’s stronger nuclear arsenal, the pervasiveness of anti-North Korean sentiment in the US, and the intensifying rivalry between the US and China, another North Korean nuclear crisis at this point might not be manageable.

The South Korea-US summit on May 21 came to a successful conclusion. It served as an opportunity for making the two countries’ alliance more reciprocal and comprehensive.

South Korea must keep a strong alliance with the US and maintain a strategic partnership with China.

With the inauguration of Joe Biden as the next American president all but certain, the eyes of the world are once again turning to the US. People are speculating about the policy line to be adopted by Biden, who has promised to value American alliances and restore multilateralism in the international community in a departure from Donald Trump’s “America First” approach. But little is known about what policy the Biden administration will adopt on the North Korean nuclear issue, the topic of greatest interest to those of us in South Korea.

It is diplomats’ job to re-evaluate alliances to suit our interests, and they shouldn’t be criticised for it. South Korea’s conservative establishment has been harshly critical of the Moon administration’s attitude toward the South Korea-US alliance. The latest controversy concerns recent remarks by Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Lee Soo-hyuck, South Korean ambassador to the US.