Ashok Dhillon
Apr 3, 20188 min
If the talks between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un actually take place, uncertainty being endemic to the relationship, considering the volatile and unpredictable nature of the two leaders, and the terms of the meeting not being clear, the outcome of that meeting if it happens will shape the power-equation that will shape South-East and Far-East Asia.
The enmity between North Korea and the United States of America goes back to the early 1950s, when the intervention of American Armed Forces saved today’s South Korea, which North Korea had already overrun. Since then, North Korea has always viewed the U.S. as the real enemy that prevented it from having all of the Korean peninsula under it, and is thwarting it from its current bid to become a nation to be respected and feared because of its emerging nuclear status, and the resulting benefit of deterrence that comes with the capability of delivering nuclear war-heads on InterContinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), with ever increasing range.
Even today, it is the presence of the American Armed Forces and its weapons in South Korea that irks and frustrates North Korea, because without those, South Korea is still vulnerable to North Korea’s military capability - doubly so with North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear arsenal.
Add to that angst China, which is irked by the U.S. military presence in all of South East Asia, and Japan, which frustrates its absolute domination in the region, particularly in South China Sea.
North Korea and China have a common goal, to rid, or at the very minimum substantially reduce the presence, the military strength and political influence of America in the region, and hence Kim Jong-un’s recent visit to Beijing and his personal meetings with President Xi Jinping, before any talks with Trump.
To date, Kim Jong-un has got the better of Trump and the U.S. as he has advanced the nuclear and missile program substantially since Trump became the President. Trump had vowed to stop North Korea in its tracks, even with its missile testing, the minute he became President, and that clearly did not happen, giving Kim Jong-un greater confidence, credibility and power in the region. His successful tests of long-range ICBMs greatly agitated the U.S.
Upon becoming the President, Trump had ratcheted up the rhetoric and the threats, and the political pressure on Kim Jong-un and North Korea quite a few notches. But instead of cowing Kim Jong-un and making him scale back his nuclear bombs and missile testing, as was Trump’s professed vow, the leader of North Korea had responded defiantly by materially accelerating his nuclear and ICBM testing program, with alarming success. Kim pushed the testing with such ferocity that it was Trump who was cowed, and reduced to asking rather plaintively, ‘doesn’t this guy have anything else to do?’.
But one of the consequences (possibly unintended), of North Korea’s rapid development of nuclear and ICBM capability was that it alarmed the rest of the World, including China, and resulted in increasingly punitive sanctions being imposed on it.
When China joined the U.S. sponsored and U.N. backed economic sanctions, as it could not risk greater escalation of hostilities with the possibilities of nuclear confrontation on its border, North Korea started to hurt economically, China being its primary partner in trade and provider of critical subsistence materials, such as food and energy. And, till North Korea acquired nuclear capability, China has been the de-facto deterrence against a full scale invasion of North Korea by the combined forces of the U.S. and South Korea in their rising concern about the North’s growing nuclear program and threat.
But as the rhetoric ratcheted up since Trump’s election, and more recently in the face of increasingly painful sanctions and greater threats from the U.S. after its acceleration of its nuclear and ICBM missile tests, Kim Jong-un cunningly turned to the softer stance and open diplomatic overtures of the current South Korean leadership, in particular President Moon Jae-in (in contrast to the lack of diplomacy from Trump).
Kim Jong-un suddenly became the conciliator diplomat, having North Korea participate in the South Korean sponsored ‘Winter Olympics’ - ‘agreeing’ to meet Trump for face-to-face talks (a first between a North Korean leader and an American President) - and went so far as to even attending South Korea’s K-Pop Star’s performances, and reportedly was ‘moved’ by them.
By making these deft political moves, and they are purely political moves as we don’t believe there has been a material change of heart, Kim Jong-un has stopped additional pressure from being brought to bear on him and his country, and has bought time to consider his next moves.
His next move, in this perennial chess game with the U.S. was quite brilliant in our view; Kim Jong-un decided to make his first visit outside of his country since inheriting the leadership of North Korea, to its only real long term benefactor and protector, China.
His personal visit, with his wife, to President Xi Jinping was productive. It repaired some of the damage done by his insistence in accelerating his nuclear program in the face of rising concern of the U.S., the World and China.
By receiving Kim Jong-un with full honours, President Xi Jinping, and China, gave him the status he needed to meet Trump on more equal terms as a recognized and respected national leader, rather than a global pariah, whose hand in the coming negotiations would have been considerably weakened if he had been rejected and abandoned by China.
President Xi Jinping’s warm and formal reception of Kim Jong-un sent a message, not only to Kim, but to the U.S. and the World, that China was still willing to be in North Korea’s corner as its prime benefactor and backer, in spite of being recently miffed with Kim’s aggressive nuclear ambitions which had brought additional pressure on China from Trump particularly, but also from the rest of the World, which saw it as the one influence that North Korea still had to respect. That warm reception changed the dynamics of the potential discussions between North Korea, the U.S. and South Korea. No longer is Kim Jong-un and North Korea completely isolated, big brother China has given the signal that it will standby its troublesome but strategically vital little neighbour. As we have mentioned above, they have common cause.
China has a number of reasons to back North Korea.
Firstly, autocratic North Korea serves as an authoritarian regime buffer between it and the democratic U.S., and its democratic charge South Korea.
Secondly, North Korea’s prickly disposition keeps the U.S., South Korea and Japan worried, off- balance and pre-occupied, taking up considerable military, diplomatic and financial resources, time and attention, which serves China well as it pushes its own geo-political agendas and boundaries in the region, with a diluted and somewhat distracted opposition from those three rivals.
Thirdly, by supporting North Korea’s cruel and heavy handed regimes that keeps its people under dire subjugation and poverty, China does not have to worry about having a high profile democratic, highly successful per capita nation like South Korea, right on its border, to be too easily accessible to its own hard-pressed people.
In addition, the failure and collapse of North Korea and its dictatorial leadership is also not an option as it would bring the resulting unification of a probably democratic Korea to its door, with the possibility of millions of starving North Koreans flooding across its borders before conditions could be improved within a reunited Korea, which could take years.
Thus, all things considered, it’s easier and better for China to continue to prop up the brutal regimes of the successive Kims than risk the overthrow of the Kim dynasty, by doing so retain a dictatorial rather than a democratic power on its border, and have a prickly (now nuclear armed) ally as a counter-foil to the U.S., South Korea and Japan combine.
Kim Jong-un came back from his trip to Beijing with a strengthened hand, declaring that he is committed to the ‘denuclearization’ of the Korean Peninsula, sounding like Trump’s dreams may be coming true of making the ‘World’s greatest deal’ (that’s apart from ‘Middle East Peace’ between Israel and Palestinians, prospects of which under Trump’s handling seem further than ever). But one can be quite certain that the conditions and terms that are going to be deemed as prerequisites by North Korea, on the U.S. and South Korea, before any concessions on the North’s nuclear program, are going to be so onerous as to render any meaningful change in the long standing status-quo almost impossible.
Of one thing we can be almost certain, Kim Jong-un and North Korea are not going to give up their hard won nuclear capability regardless of how much American or global pressure is brought to bear, because that nuclear capability is Kim Jong-un’s only real insurance policy that neither America nor any other country dare invade it, or try to bring about ‘regime change’ without putting the country and the World in lethal danger.
It is the old fashioned ‘nuclear deterrence that all the major powers of the World enjoy, including Israel and Pakistan, and North Korea and Kim Jong-un has seen it work time and again.
Plus, after watching Trump’s insistence on breaking the signed ‘Iran Nuclear Agreement’ possibly in May, with the insistent ‘encouragement’ from Israel, between Iran and 6 other countries (America, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China), to which Iran has strictly adhered to, verifiably, what incentive could Kim Jong-un possibly have to put himself and his country in Iran’s sorry predicament, of having signed a ‘Denuclearization Agreement’ and still be subject to bullying, with sanctions, and unilateral changing of the agreement terms.
The ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’, or as more formally known as the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ signed by the 6 countries in 2015, under Obama, which has halted any possibility of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapons program, is now in doubt because Trump wants to undo what Obama had done just out of spite. Towards that end, and in spite all of Iran’s compliance with the terms of the agreement, Iran is the constant target of America’s and Israel’s hatred and threats. Kim Jong-un has to wonder why the heck would he want to put himself and North Korea in a similar position of weakness, and vulnerability, when he is already in a strong position of deterrence, where even the mighty U.S. is extremely reluctant to attack it or invade.
So, it is obvious that Kim Jong-un is playing the long game. He has with his latest moves, which include thawing relations with South Korea, to tip the relationship and going forward strategy of the South and the U.S. at odds with each other, and forcing the U.S. towards diplomacy instead of any dangerous and damaging military action, and by reassuring China of its continuing loyalty, ideological and political conformity, Kim Jong-un seeks to out-maneuver Trump and America by dragging it into lengthy and possibly productive negotiations where it can gain relief from punishing sanctions without ever giving up its nuclear capability. Iran’s predicament of having agreed to a halt to its nuclear program, and having kept all the terms, and still having to suffer the indignity of being pushed around by Trump and Israel, is a glaring reason for North Korea NOT to capitulate on its nuclear capability.
As for China, having a nuclear armed North Korea balances somewhat the coalition of the U.S. and its allies South Korea and Japan in the region, and with North Korea’s constant threat of nuclear capability keeping its adversaries America, South Korea and Japan nervous and in check, China’s own hand in South East and Far East Asia is considerably strengthened in the long term. So the best we see as the outcome of any talks between Trump and Kim Jong-un is the negotiations of concessions on both sides that stabilizes the current situation, but leaves a nuclear armed North Korea as a force to be reckoned with well into the future. Unless the Kim dynasty comes to a premature end - then all bets are off.