South Korea's new leader willing to visit North to cool tensions

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday congratulated Moon Jae-in on his election as South Korean president.

Former human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in was sworn in as South Korea's new President on Wednesday, hours after the country's election commission confirmed his victory in the polls.

"Moon has been stern with the U.S., telling them no preemptive strike on North Korea without our cooperation; that's rather appealing for South Koreans." said Kim Ji-yoon, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

"President Trump said he looks forward to working with President Moon and invited him to visit Washington at an early date". I am willing to go anywhere for the peace of the Korean Peninsula - if needed, I will fly immediately to Washington.

"I will go to Beijing and Tokyo too, and I will go to Pyongyang if conditions allow it", he told the public.

US President Donald Trump recently suggested Seoul should pay for the $1 billion deployment of the anti-missile system, sparking anger in Seoul.

Moon's more liberal approach could fuel tensions, as happened under a liberal South Korean government in the 2000s.

Some of what Moon is pitching could indeed ease tensions and potentially create the leeway both sides need to start talking to each other again.

Moon named Suh Hoon, a career spy agency official and a veteran of inter-Korea ties, as the head of the National Intelligence Service. At the time, the USA declared that the South had "lost its nerve" and was clearing the way for North Korea to emerge as a nuclear weapons state.

After winning the presidential election, Moon said: "This is the great victory for the great people who have been with me to build a just country, united country and a country where principle and common sense works".

South Korea's presidential office did not say whether Moon and Trump discussed the deployment of THAAD.

Un more chance: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un's reclusive country issued a photograph of him touring "Rangnang Disabled Soldiers" Essential Goods Factory' in Pyongyang. Moons victory will nearly certainly slam the door shut on any military option against North Korea for the Trump administration.

Outspoken and charismatic, Im has always been dogged by accusations he is a North Korea sympathiser.

A television screen shows a news program reporting about North Korea's missile firing, at Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea, March 6, 2017.

He was followed by Hong Joon-pyo of the conservative Liberty Korea Party, who had almost 7.3 million votes, accounting for 25.04 per cent of votes counted so far.

Moon will have a hard diplomatic path to tread in his approach to the North, which dreams of a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States, and has vast artillery forces trained on Seoul.

Moon's previous comments have some observers convinced that he will bring back the "Sunshine Policy" that was in place the last time the liberals had power.

He won the presidential by-election to replace ousted leader Park Geun-hye, who now awaits a corruption trial in jail.