Diplomats around the Korean Peninsula are paying keen attention to Alex Wong, the White House's chief deputy adviser to the National Security Council, who has emerged as the "keyman" for North Korea policy of the second U.S. Donald Trump administration.
In a statement announcing the appointment of Wong as the NSC's deputy adviser on the 22nd (local time), Trump said, "He helped negotiate my summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un," citing the fact that he served as the State Department's special deputy (副) representative for North Korea during his first term in power.During Trump's first term, Wong named
as the State Department's special deputy representative for North Korea in December 2017, when U.S.-North Korea relations shifted from a "hard confrontation" to an unprecedented summit diplomacy, and was deeply involved in diplomatic affairs with North Korea until just before Trump left office.
Diplomats say Wong is a person with a "political sense" that values the principle of North Korea's denuclearization but reads the White House's stance on North Korea and actively responds to it.
If former Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, his boss during Trump's first term, is a "principleist" toward North Korea, Wong, who combines "principle theory" and "political orientation," seemed more flexible than Biegun in North Korea.
Therefore, if North Korea-U.S. summit diplomacy is attempted again during Trump's second term, whether Wong will engage in working-level negotiations with North Korea with his principles or flexibility could be an important variable in the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
On the other hand, Wong's 'resume book', which encompasses legislative, judicial, administrative, and private sectors, is also attracting attention.
After graduating from Harvard Law School with an undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania (majoring in English and French), he has built his career in politics, not only at the State Department, but also as a foreign policy and legal adviser to Senator Tom Cotton and as a foreign and legal policy officer for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign (2012).
He has also worked at private law firms as a lawyer, as well as a history of being a trial researcher under a judge in the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, DC.
Remarkably, he also worked as a Head of Public Affairs at Coupang Inc Washington, D.C., the parent company of Coupang, a Korean e-commerce platform, from August 2021 until recently.
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