The People Power Party on Friday called on the government and the ruling party to "abandon the submissive stance toward North Korea," continuing its sharp criticism over issues including the scaling back of joint South Korea-US military exercises.
Jeong Jeom-sik, the PPP's floor leader, opened a floor strategy meeting at the National Assembly that day by saying the Democratic Party had repeatedly been "played" by North Korea over the past 30 years. "The Lee Jae Myung administration and the Democratic Party must acknowledge the errors of their past North Korea policy," he said.
"Security policy must start from a cold-eyed view of reality," Jeong said. "No country in history has ever won peace by begging its enemy. Now that North Korea's advancing nuclear capabilities have become reality, we must build the strength needed to pursue peace in the face of that nuclear threat."
Jeong said the government needed to respond appropriately to the current security situation. He noted that US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that North Korea possesses 57 nuclear weapons, while Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-baek said on Thursday that the North holds between 80 and 100. "It is hard to deny the reality that North Korea's nuclear arsenal has grown significantly more advanced," he said.
Jeong then turned to President Lee's recent remarks. "With the security situation this grave, President Lee Jae Myung expressed admiration for President Trump, saying Trump had sought to build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula by scaling back the joint military exercises," he said. "What commander in chief of any country would cheer like this after being left out of an alliance's training schedule?"
Jeong also criticized the Democratic Party's North Korea policy by citing historical precedent. "Since President Kim Dae-jung declared the Sunshine Policy in 1998, Democratic Party governments have consistently maintained a submissive posture toward the North, always invoking peace and an end to the war," he said. "As a result, the South Korean people live not with peace but with a North Korean nuclear threat hanging over their heads."
He added that just after the inter-Korean summit in 2000, President Kim declared there would be "no more war on the Korean Peninsula" — yet North Korea carried out its first nuclear test in 2006.
Jeong also linked President Lee's falling approval ratings to the administration's policy direction. "The current drop in President Lee's approval ratings is the result of ignoring the opposition's warnings to change course and stubbornly sticking to the wrong policy path," he said. He called for a shift to a market-oriented real estate policy and said Policy Chief Kim Yong-beom and Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Koo Yun-cheol should be replaced, as both had served as the control tower for economic policy.
Jeong further demanded the dismissal of the ministers of unification and national defense, saying internal disarray within the foreign policy and security apparatus — with officials each acting independently — needed to be resolved to ease public anxiety over security and national defense. "Ministers Jeong Dong-young and Ahn Gyu-baek must be replaced without fail," he said.
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