The prevailing criticism of the US-China summit in Washington is that it amounted to little more than diplomatic pageantry. But one outcome deserves recognition: it may have helped keep alive the prospect of renewed US-North Korea dialogue. North Korea, after all, was among the global security issues discussed by the two leaders.
Details of those discussions have not been made public. Still, the circumstances suggest that the two leaders may have found some common ground on the need to revive dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang. More telling is what was missing. Unlike after their summit in May, there was no reference this time to “North Korean denuclearization.”
The omission matters. Rather than repeating an elusive end state, it suggests a growing need for a more practical way out of the deadlock – starting with the revival of US-North Korea dialogue. Such talks could help put back in motion a relationship that’s been stalled since the failed 2019 Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi. China has little reason to oppose that.
Another opening for renewed dialogue may come from the South Korean government’s phased approach to the North Korean nuclear issue. In his address to the UN General Assembly, President Lee Jae Myung proposed first halting further advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities, followed by reductions over the medium term and, ultimately, achievement of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Lee had earlier proposed a trade-off in which some sanctions on North Korea would be eased in return for a halt to further nuclear development.
For South Korea, a primary party to the North Korean nuclear issue, putting a halt to further nuclear development ahead of the ultimate goal of denuclearization is a practical proposition. It sets a realistic baseline for what Washington and Pyongyang might expect from negotiations, easing the political burden on both leaders while creating a workable point of contact for restarting talks.
The window for halting North Korea’s nuclear buildup
Whether US-North Korea dialogue resumes now ultimately depends on Kim Jong Un’s strategic choice. But North Korea cannot simply dismiss the diplomatic opening before it. If Pyongyang continues to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities, then deterrence efforts by South Korea, the United States and Japan will inevitably intensify. Nor is it realistic to assume that cooperation with Russia alone can offset those strategic pressures.
If Kim passes up yet another opportunity for dialogue, the security burden North Korea will have to bear may ultimately outweigh whatever strategic gains it expects to make. It would be a mistake to regard cooperation with Russia as a permanent safeguard that can substitute for dialogue with the United States. The choices Pyongyang makes now could leave it with even fewer diplomatic options later.
Recent statements from Pyongyang have been uncompromising. In a Foreign Ministry memorandum, North Korea again described its nuclear forces as a means of guaranteeing national security. Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong went further in his address to the UN General Assembly, declaring that the country’s status as a nuclear-armed state had been “permanently fixed both physically and legally,” effectively dismissing the prospect of denuclearization.
On the face of it, North Korea may appear to be using its advancing nuclear and missile capabilities to gain leverage and draw strategic concessions from surrounding countries. But the deadlock will not be broken by treating denuclearization and recognition of North Korea as a nuclear-armed state as the only two choices.
With Pyongyang expanding its nuclear capabilities and hardening its rejection of denuclearization, insisting that the ultimate goal of denuclearization must also be the sole precondition for negotiations risks pushing the situation deeper into a quagmire – and potentially inviting a catastrophic crisis.
This is where a halt to further nuclear development becomes relevant. It can serve as a practical intermediate step between the ultimate goal of denuclearization and the immediate need to manage the nuclear threat. The point is not to recognize North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. It is to stop the further expansion of its nuclear and missile capabilities first, and from there create room for dialogue and negotiation. Keeping denuclearization as the ultimate objective while dealing first with the threat at hand offers a realistic starting point for reviving US-North Korea negotiations after years of paralysis.
The deeper the chill, the greater the opening for peace and negotiation
Diplomacy has its paradoxes. The most severe moments of crisis can also open the way to negotiation and reconciliation. Amid intense strategic competition between the United States and China, the two countries need strategic coordination to curb further advances in North Korea’s nuclear capabilities if they are to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and institutionalize the principle of “common security.”
North Korea was discussed at the latest US-China summit. What matters now is whether that discussion can be turned into real momentum for reopening dialogue with Pyongyang.
South Korea has an important role to play as well. President Lee’s phased approach at the UN General Assembly – halt, reduction and denuclearization – now needs to be developed into a more concrete diplomatic framework. What exactly would a halt cover? What reciprocal measures would follow North Korean steps? And how would compliance be verified? These questions require workable answers. Without them, a halt to further nuclear development will remain a declaratory goal rather than become a realistic starting point for renewed US-North Korea dialogue.
The United States and China – and Russia as well – have little justification for standing by as North Korea continues to expand its nuclear capabilities unchecked. Breaking the deadlock will ultimately require a change in Kim Jong Un’s strategic calculus, an active South Korean role as a diplomatic pace-setter, and constructive US-China cooperation to open a path toward peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula.
Lee Min-Yong is a visiting professor in the School of Global Service at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul and a former adviser for foreign affairs and national security to the Presidential Office of the Republic of Korea.
