On 10 May 2017, Moon Jae-in, a liberal human rights lawyer, was
elected as the 12th President of the Republic of Korea (ROK).
Moon’s election puts an end to a period of instability in South
Korean politics, unleashed by the political scandal which broke
out in Autumn 2016 and led to the impeachment of conservative
President Park Geun-hye. Moon has promised dialogue with North
Korea and a warmer relationship with China1
. He has also raised
questions about the ‘comfort women’ agreement reached between
South Korea and Japan in 2015, painstakingly negotiated by
the Park administration and widely hailed as a stepping stone for
greater cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo2
. Moreover, Moon
has criticized his country’s excessive dependence on and deference
to the United States, and has been especially critical towards
the ‘hasty’ deployment of a new U.S. missile defense system in
South Korea: Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)3
