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Strengthening cooperation with China is the only way to minimize the damage dealt by strategic and tactical cooperation between North Korea and Russia

In an essay published in Foreign Policy on Sept. 12, Siegfried Hecker, a longtime observer of North Korea, characterized Kim’s overture toward Russia as “neither tactical nor desperate” but a “result of a fundamental shift in North Korean policy, finally abandoning a 30-year effort to normalize relations with the US.”

What should South Korea’s next move be? As the details of the agreement made between North Korea and Russia have not been made public, various opinions are being put forth. Progressives say that “North Korea has emerged as a formidable actor on the international stage” (Cheong Wook-sik, director of the Hankyoreh Peace Institute) and are demanding that the Yoon Suk-yeol administration should “course-correct” its diplomacy, which is oriented toward blindly following the US and uncritically antagonizing Nort