It all started with the Winter Olympics in South Korea, where both North and South fielded a joint team. And the event was attended by a North Korean delegation that included its dictator Kim Jong-un’s sister. Which, in turn, led to a South Korean delegation’s visit to Pyongyang where it was received with great fanfare by Kim Jong-un and his government. They were conveyed a message from Kim that he was ready for a summit with US President Donald Trump to talk about denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Trump has accepted the offer, but he has also said that the sanctions against North Korea would remain in place until an agreement is reached.
It has all been so sudden, coming after rhetorical, but the dangerous exchange of insults between the two leaders, with Trump deriding Kim as the ‘little rocket man’ and threatening to unleash ‘fire and fury’. Kim responded by saying that ‘I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.’
So what has led to this sudden change of the atmospherics? The severity of the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council is regarded as the prime reason. The sanctions are starting to hurt North Korea, especially after their strict enforcement to prevent any leakage that has helped Pyongyang to circumvent the blockade. Even its ally China has put the squeeze just short of completely cutting off its arteries, lest a complete collapse of the regime might create more problems for China like, for instance, an exodus of refugees across its border.
To suggest that the Korean peninsula issue is moving towards its settlement is an overstatement, when even the parameters of the proposed summit are vague
Beijing has welcomed this new development. Commenting on it, a foreign ministry spokesperson said that ‘We welcome the positive signals by the US and North Korea about having a direct dialogue. The Korean peninsula issue is moving in the right direction towards its settlement.’
To suggest that the Korean peninsula issue is moving towards its settlement is an overstatement, when even the parameters of the proposed summit are vague, to say the least. China should know from past experiences that even when it hosted the talks to resolve the nuclear issue, it simply fizzled out. It is still not clear what sort of role, if any, China will play to advance the process of dialogue, if it came to that stage.
It must be said that Pyongyang has played its cards well, so far, by creating a semblance of North-South amity, starting with the Winter Olympics, and using Seoul as the conduit to facilitate any dialogue between North Korea and the United States. Even though Seoul continues to insist, as does the United States, that denuclearisation of North Korea is the first order of any talks, it is difficult to envisage that Pyongyang will simply surrender.
Under Kim Jong-un, North Korea has hastened to acquire the trappings of dangerous nuclear power, even claiming that its missiles can now reach the US to inflict maximum damage. In other words, North Korea cannot be trifled with. At the same time, if Pyongyang were, in any sense, serious about going ahead with talks about denuclearisation, it would need to show some serious intent.
Pyongyang would believe that it has shown that intent by stopping its testing of nuclear weapons and missiles, as it did during the Winter Olympics and likely will continue during the summit and the follow-up dialogue. This, in turn, might create momentum to keep the process. Therefore, the first step will be a moratorium on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
But what might be the quid pro quo for North Korea? Pyongyang will certainly like a suspension of periodic US-South Korea military exercises that, it fears, are designed to overthrow the Kim regime. Indeed, much of its nuclear rattling is intended to be a strong deterrent to any potential attack on North Korea by the US. Therefore, it would like some tangible assurance about its security, and the suspension of periodic Washington-Seoul military exercises might be a step in that direction. China has favoured this course as a way to break the impasse.
But the US might not be inclined to do this because Washington’s position appears to be that denuclearisation of North Korea is the first and foremost issue. Therefore, Pyongyang would not be rewarded for blackmailing the region and the world with its nuclear arsenal.
It would depend on how desperate the North Korean situation is economically, and if it is very bad, how much of a lifeline China would be prepared to extend. So far, China has kept North Korea going by keeping it on a tight leash, just short of collapse because it doesn’t want hordes of North Korean refugees flooding across the border into China. And it wants North Korea as a buffer between US forces in South Korea, away from its borders. But China also wants North Korea to denuclearise.
Against this backdrop, Beijing has kept up the pressure on Pyongyang, and it seems to be working, with Kim keen to hold a summit with Trump. At the same time, he has softened up South Korea, through his Winter Olympics diplomacy, to create a seemingly unified Korean position of seeking peace, though its nuclear arsenal is a major issue.
In other words, short of Pyongyang’s moratorium on its nuclear programme and a clear follow-up commitment to denuclearisation, there is unlikely to be any breakthrough. In any case, apart from the dramatic acceptance by Trump of Kim’s offer, there is not much happening by way of preparatory diplomatic groundwork.
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney. He can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, March 22nd 2018.