President Yoon was harsh on North Korea. President Lee wants to do things differently.
Published: 18 Jun. 2025, 15:24
Updated: 19 Jun. 2025, 00:05
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- SEO JI-EUN
- [email protected]
![President Lee Jae Myung observes the North through binoculars in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi, on June 13. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/06/19/c4005c60-f6bf-49e8-989f-1531a3742479.jpg)
President Lee Jae Myung observes the North through binoculars in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi, on June 13. [YONHAP]
South Korea’s new President Lee Jae Myung is extending an initial olive branch as he seeks to reset policy toward North Korea.
In his first week in office, Lee ordered the military to shut down loudspeaker broadcasts aimed at the North along the inter-Korean border’s demilitarized zone and instructed authorities to crack down on anti-Pyongyang leaflet-carrying balloons.
The moves are in line with a broader goal the president has repeated since taking office: restoring dialogue and easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. They mark a clear break from the hard-line, retaliatory approach of the previous Yoon Suk Yeol government toward Pyongyang, which Lee has argued only deepened inter-Korean tensions and hurt both national security and economic stability.
Compared to fellow liberal predecessor Moon Jae-in, Lee’s approach also appears distinct. While Moon advocated idealistic reconciliatory initiatives that led to a period of detente on the Korean Peninsula, Lee is positioning himself as a more pragmatic actor, committed to engagement but insistent on reciprocity.
Domestic and foreign analysts have largely welcomed the de-escalation, though they caution that North Korea’s response, or lack thereof, will ultimately determine the success of Lee’s early overtures.
For now, Pyongyang seems to have returned calm in kind — its loudspeakers fell silent too — but what happens beyond reduced noise remains unclear.
![President Lee Jae Myung ordered a full suspension of loudspeaker broadcasts toward North Korea on June 11. In this stock photo taken on May 1, 2018, South Korean soldiers dismantle a loudspeaker system near the demilitarized zone. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/06/19/0cd52aac-69f3-475b-89d3-85746850c628.jpg)
President Lee Jae Myung ordered a full suspension of loudspeaker broadcasts toward North Korea on June 11. In this stock photo taken on May 1, 2018, South Korean soldiers dismantle a loudspeaker system near the demilitarized zone. [YONHAP]
Halting border broadcasts
Lee’s government announced on June 11 that it would suspend its yearlong loudspeaker propaganda campaign along the DMZ — the daily blast of K-pop music and anti-North broadcasts that the Yoon administration had resumed in mid-2024.
The measure was “meant to ease tension, reduce military confrontation and build trust,” presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung told reporters.
After 48 hours — likely in response — North Korean speakers also fell silent. South Korea’s military reported on June 12 that no loudspeaker noise was audible from across the border.
Residents living near the DMZ welcomed the move.
“At night, there were horrible sounds — animals crying, women wailing, babies screaming,” Yoo Jeom-soon, a resident of Daeseong-dong, told Lee during his visit.
“People became exhausted and sick,” she said. “I tried earplugs and white noise machines, but I still couldn’t sleep. [...] Just talking about it brings me to tears.”
Following the mutual suspension of broadcasts, Yoo said: “I can finally stretch my legs and sleep soundly. Thank you.”
![Members of the Families of Abductees to North Korea release eight anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border from behind a fence at Peace Land in Paju, Gyeonggi, in the early hours of April 27. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/06/19/6a14d9c6-6a3c-448b-a201-0ae1a91a73ca.jpg)
Members of the Families of Abductees to North Korea release eight anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border from behind a fence at Peace Land in Paju, Gyeonggi, in the early hours of April 27. [NEWS1]
Cracking down on leaflet balloons
At the same time, Lee moved sharply in the opposite direction on another contentious issue and source of border tensions: the launches of anti-Pyongyang leaflet-carrying balloons.
Following new reports of launches from Ganghwa Island, Incheon, on June 14, even after North Korea had ended its broadcasts, Lee instructed officials to treat such acts as a violations of the law and to devise preventive and punitive measures.
In response, senior government officials met the following Monday to discuss legal mechanisms to block further balloon flights.
The administration said it would seek to replace the 2020 leaflet ban — which the Constitutional Court struck down in 2023 as a violation of free speech — with new legislation by Liberation Day in mid-August. Authorities also pledged to deploy police mobile units in key border areas to prevent launches.
The Ministry of Unification announced that an interagency task force would be formed to monitor and respond to leaflet-related activity both “ad hoc and regularly” — signaling what some observers have called a revival of the weekly coordination meetings held during the Moon era.
This represents a reversal from the Yoon era.
Under Yoon, South Korea had largely tolerated, and even tacitly encouraged, activists to launch balloons carrying dollar bills, leaflets, junk mail and USB sticks loaded with K-pop songs toward the North — a policy that provoked retaliatory actions from Pyongyang, including waves of trash-carrying balloons and loudspeaker broadcasts.
Yet Lee’s leaflet crackdown drew backlash from human rights groups and families of abductees.
![Choi Seong-ryong, right, head of the Families of Abductees to North Korea, argues with Democratic Party Rep. Youn Hu-duk, who is attempting to dissuade the activist group from launching leaflets in Paju, Gyeonggi, on Oct. 31, 2024. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/06/19/a0f9cf34-2510-47fd-ada1-2977ef1fb14c.jpg)
Choi Seong-ryong, right, head of the Families of Abductees to North Korea, argues with Democratic Party Rep. Youn Hu-duk, who is attempting to dissuade the activist group from launching leaflets in Paju, Gyeonggi, on Oct. 31, 2024. [YONHAP]
Members of the Families of Abductees to North Korea Association held a protest in front of the government complex in Seoul on Monday denouncing the government’s pressure as an “ideological crackdown on its own citizens.”
These activists, whose loved ones were abducted decades ago, argued that they had a right to send news to relatives whom they might never see again.
Legal experts and activists have also raised constitutional concerns. They warn that using aviation and gas safety laws to restrict balloon activity, in the absence of a dedicated leaflet law, may infringe on freedom of expression and could be challenged again in court.
Waiting mode
North Korea’s response has so far been muted. By Saturday, Seoul had reported that Pyongyang’s famous “ghost noise” broadcasts had ceased, and no official comment had come from the capital.
North Korean state media often denounce South Korean leaders personally, but newswire searches found no immediate reaction to Lee’s announcements.
Analysts predict that Pyongyang may wait to see if Seoul’s conciliatory gestures are genuine. Pyongyang has not shown interest in resuming dialogue unless South Korea abandons sanctions or provides incentives.
On the international stage, allies are watching closely.
Washington and Tokyo have long urged Seoul to balance outreach to Pyongyang with alliance commitments.
U.S. and other Western diplomats have withheld public judgment on the leaflet issue, focusing instead on coordinating with Seoul to press Pyongyang on denuclearization. Thus far, Lee’s steps have been framed as ways to reduce tensions on the peninsula — a strategy most international observers agree North Korea’s next move will put to the test.
A shift from Yoon, a contrast with Moon
Lee’s early actions mark a clear break from the preceding Yoon era — while also differing in tone from Moon’s.
Under the conservative Yoon administration, South Korea took a confrontational stance, with loudspeakers blaring 24/7 and waves of balloons flying over the border, in retaliation for Pyongyang’s provocations.
Lee has reversed those policies, vowing instead to “heal the scars of division and war and chart a future of peace and prosperity.” In his inaugural address, titled “Message to the People,” he said, “No matter how costly, peace is better than war. It is better to win without fighting than to win through conflict, and the most certain security is a peace that makes fighting unnecessary.”
But Lee is not simply replicating Moon’s approach of pushing for peace on the Korean Peninsula in tandem with U.S.-North denuclearization negotiations. Moon’s strategy led to a series of high-profile summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and culminated in the 2018 Pyongyang Joint Declaration, which included a landmark inter-Korean military agreement aimed at de-escalating tensions along the border.
Atlantic Council expert Sungmin Cho expects that Lee will “generally align with the Democratic Party’s traditional approach,” favoring dialogue and stable ties, but emphasizes that he is “notably more pragmatic than Moon.”
Where Moon often spoke of peace and solidarity with the North in grand terms, Lee has emphasized reciprocity and concrete conditions aimed at denuclearization.
As Cho notes, Lee’s foreign policy advisers are known internationalists, and the new president has stressed economic recovery above grand diplomatic gambits. In practice, Lee is likely to avoid Moon’s open-ended diplomacy and instead leverage stronger economic focus, alliances and pressure as needed. He has already characterized an immediate inter-Korean summit as “infeasible.”
U.S. watchers also remind Seoul that any U.S. negotiations with Pyongyang — such as a potential third summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump — could “sideline” South Korea if it is not at the table. During his first term, Trump held three meetings with the North Korean leader, including a historic summit in Singapore and a follow-up in Hanoi. However, the diplomacy ultimately collapsed after the 2019 Hanoi summit ended without an agreement on sanctions relief or denuclearization steps, stalling inter-Korean progress.
Analysts also stress that Lee’s timing is difficult.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Tuesday that Kim had pledged to dispatch an additional 6,000 military engineers and construction troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine, deepening its military ties with Moscow.
Concerns regarding the regime’s nuclear arsenal are also escalating.
A 2021 RAND report suggests that North Korea has between 40 and 60 nuclear weapons and that its stockpile could support more than 200 warheads by 2027. Additionally, the International Atomic Energy Agency recently reported that a new enrichment facility, resembling an existing one near Pyongyang, is currently under construction Yongbyon, North Pyongan Province.
Kayla Orta, a nonresident fellow at the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, wrote in a recent Stimson Center publication that Lee faces an “emboldened North Korea, bolstered by renewed and expanding security relations with Russia and backed by China.”
Given advances in the North’s capabilities, Orta predicted, “a pathway of political engagement seems unlikely to solve Seoul’s immediate security crisis.”
BY SEO JI-EUN [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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