Donald Trump’s recent letter to Kim Jong-un, indicating the cancellation of the Singapore Summit should not be surprising. The Trump-Kim summit was doomed to fail because Trump’s Art of Deal was not going to work with Kim’s North Korea.
Was it ever Trump’s initiative?
Probably not. It’s Kim’s. History has borne witness to this. North Korea never intended to abandon the hard-won nukes it had. Abandoning the nuclear program did not present any significant benefit for the regime either.
Before embarking on underlining the reasons for Trump’s decision, it’s imperative to look for possible benefits North Korea could expect in return for its nuclear program. The first and most important reason could be the unification of the Koreas under Kim — though that’s a bit out of the box. The second could be a security guarantee, a nuclear umbrella, from China along with economic benefits. The third could be massive economic support from South Korea, Japan, and US in addition to security guarantees. After the initial phase of diplomacy, the Kim regime had nothing from the above benefits. The outcome? The US-North Korea peace process ended before the start.
Among all the developments, however, one of the most noteworthy was Kim’s ability to manoeuvre and test the limits of friends and foes in Northeast Asia and the Western Hemisphere. How his initiative (or a possible bluff) exposed the lack of coordination and trust among allies — Japan, South Korea, and US — was also notable. South Korea took the lead, Japan felt left behind, and Trump feared no deal. All three looked to secure more than they were willing to offer. With no offers on the horizon, Kim resorted to his methods. North Korean gestures thus proved sufficient for the White House hawks to cancel the meeting, if there was any possibility of its success, and back off.
Taken at the face value, the Trump-Kim meeting didn’t favour North Korea. The Singapore meeting had little to offer other than news headlines and Kim’s photo in dozens of newspapers across the globe — even if Trump had not walked away during the meeting. The situation wasn’t favourable to the above expectations. Unification after denuclearisation was not possible. We can expect rationality on this matter from Kim. The second expectation involving China held some water. Yet, Kim’s trip to China and meeting with Xi Jinping didn’t result in any offer from the High Church of Realism: China. Strategic and patient Chinese leadership stopped short of any public assurance or offer. And then Kim has every reason to be suspicious of Xi’s rich, pragmatic, and dominating China. Nor did he have ideological brethren in Beijing awaiting his call for help. Long gone are the days of Kim Il-sung and Mao Zedong when Mao’s volunteers entered the Korean War to save the communist regime and keep a buffer zone intact.
The third expectation, however, comprised the possible. The Allied-side could have given time to diplomacy that meant avoiding hawkish statements and gestures to sabotage the commencement of the negotiation process. If Mike Pompeo and company found it difficult, they could clearly state their expectations from North Korea — as Henry Kissinger would have done. Ambiguity, in this case, had haunted the process from the beginning.
It’s Kim’s show, not Trump’s. He was the man with the strings. To give him no sweetener and make him envisage himself as Colonel Gaddafi was a mistake
After the shaky start that led to a meeting between the heads of two Koreas in April 2018, the White House quickly took all the credit for the meeting occurring thousands of miles away. Then rhetoric, empty threats, and fear did the rest.
It was no coincidence that American National Security Advisor John Bolton referred to the Libyan model of denuclearisation as an ideal to be followed. Did he not know that referring to the Libyan case as an example would be a bad start? Or that Libya was a bad word to use when it came to the matters of denuclearisation? Perhaps not. And then was there no clear indication of Kim’s willingness to adopt the Libyan model that comprised verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation (V&ID) — which was the US’ pre-condition. North Korea showed no such gesture. At least, for it, the V&ID wasn’t on the cards in the first meeting. What Kim wanted was an opening along nukes — something that could earn him security, secure his regime, and economic benefits.
It will not take us years to find out that it was ultimately Kim who constrained the US to call off the meeting (but left the US to take all the blame). Loss loomed high for the Trump administration, and success appeared nearly impossible. After all, it’s Kim’s show, not Trump’s. He was the man with strings. To give him no sweetener and make him envisage himself as Colonel Gaddafi was a mistake — a mistake which eventually proved detrimental to the peace process that ended before the start. Why would Kim not pledge for V&ID in the first meeting was a simple puzzle to solve. No one in Kim’s place (ruling a country like North Korea) would portray himself as weak in front of a US President. Only continued bilateral diplomacy offered the solution to Kim’s problem, who, with nothing to show, was prudent to slow down the peace process and a possible nuclear agreement — that is if it wasn’t ended forever.
The writer is PhD candidate at Area Study Centre, Quaid-i-Azam University. He’s previously a visiting fellow at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He tweets at @shoaibm37
Published in Daily Times, May 28th 2018.