The Biden-Harris administration’s new Asia policy pick has advocated for using maximum pressure to bring about North Korean denuclearization – a bad sign for Seoul’s urgent push for inter-Korean reconciliation.

Jung H. Pak, a well-known North Korea specialist and former Central Intelligence Agency official, announced her new role as the U.S. State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs on Wednesday. In her 2020 book, “Becoming Kim Jong Un,” she criticizes Trump’s summits with the North Korean leader in 2018 and 2019 as achieving little and actually undermining the international sanctions regime.[/p