Does whiplash make a sound? One can almost hear the collective neck strain pervading Northeast Asia following South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The only thing that might be more pervasive is the air of cynicism surrounding the leaders of South and North Korea making nice, holding hands and pledging peace. Echoes of 2007 cloud the Northeast Asian skies. North Korea, many claim, can’t be trusted, so let’s get serious. And who’d trust Donald Trump? The US president is, after all, reneging on an Iran nuclear deal that might be a model for Korean denuclearization.
Then again – what if this is for real?
South Korea: High stakes
Anyone who followed then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun’s awkward visit with Kim Jong-il in 2007 can see the Moon-Kim vibe is different. If their apparent chemistry is all for the cameras, Kim must have been investing in acting lessons. Also, with China upping the stakes on sanctions, and Trump holding the stick while Moon previews the carrots, Friday’s summit deserves a chance.
The seismic implications of peace are almost too many to contemplate. While there might be winners all around, the biggest would be Moon. He’d be a shoo-in for a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump is already angling for one, but hats off to Moon for doing the heavy lifting and taking the real risks.
Inviting the Kim clan to the recent Olympics, against minimal but widely reported opposition in the South, was a gutsy move. Trump, remember, deployed Vice President Mike Pence to Pyeongchang to make side-eyes at the Kims.
But it will be Moon left holding the bag if this latest Kim gamble goes awry – not Trump’s White House.
China: pros and cons
China, depending on how you view it, is winner and loser. On the one hand, Xi Jinping’s government might get a respite from Kim’s nuclear tests and missile launches. Fewer angry calls from Washington, Brussels and Seoul would suit President Xi just fine. On the other, if Pyongyang does become a more normal state, Beijing could lose a very useful proxy and source of geopolitical leverage. Pyongyang’s antics have long been a valuable way to throw the West off balance.
Japan: Pushed out of the picture
Moon and Kim hugging it out is a nightmare for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Already on the ropes amid cronyism scandals and a Trump bromance gone wrong, Abe is having to explain a few uncomfortable truths to voters.
One is why Japan, Northeast Asia’s leading democracy, was left out. Perhaps it was Xi’s way of twisting the knife at Abe and his fellow nationalists. Perhaps it’s Kim’s dynastic revenge for long-ago wartime aggression: His grandfather was a leading partisan.
Making matters worse, even Trump excluded Abe from the most important geopolitical event in Tokyo’s backyard. The POTUS signed on to a Kim meeting without consulting Tokyo. That’s left Team Abe looking terribly small – complaining about a flag used in desserts at the Moon-Kim summit and asking Trump to please, please ask Kim about Japanese abducted by Pyongyang decades ago. Will Trump even bother?
There’s another way the peace process could blow up on Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party: demands for reparations. In 1965, Tokyo paid just that to Seoul for its wartime aggression and colonization. If a dessert made Abe’s fellow nationalists squirm, imagine how they’ll feel when Kim pulls out his calculator. With the world, and posterity, watching, Tokyo would have a hard time saying no.
Russia: Pipeline please
Another potential winner: Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which has been a side player in the latest North Korea détente process. Not for long, though, if Kim okays a more porous demilitarized zone.
Moscow’s likely focus: resurrecting a decade-old dream of building a pipeline to South Korea. In late March, Kang Kyung-wha, South Korea’s foreign minister, said: “Should the security situation on the Korean Peninsula improve, we will be able to review the PNG [pipeline natural gas] business involving the two Koreas and Russia.” That – and a trans-Korean rail link to the Trans-Siberian Express, even a power cable to the south – would be music to Putin’s ears.
US: A Nobel for POTUS?
Trump, meantime, may be on the cusp of an epochal geopolitical win. Firing Tomahawk missiles at Syria made Americans feel good, but changed nothing. If Trump’s bluster really did coax Kim to the table, then his White House deserves credit.
Of course, Kim could be playing chess with a checkers president. Just as it’s possible Trump’s “fire and fury” barbs spooked Kim into dealing, Kim could be calculating that Trump is an ideal dupe.
So confident is Trump in his “art of the deal” that he may be swaggering into a trap. Kim gets the meeting with an American president his dad never could, and the photo-op of a lifetime. Then, once Pyongyang secures lots of spoils and buys time, it’s back to Kim family business as usual.
The odds of Kim ever giving up his nukes, after all, are extraordinarily small. There’s a flip-side here, though. If Trump feels played, he might give his new national-security chief, uber-hawk John Bolton, the green light to gleefully open fire.
Friday’s summit deserves a real shot. It’s easy to roll one’s eyes at events in the truce village of Panmunjom; harder to give peace a chance.
In the meantime, neck braces are selling out around the globe.
Moreover, the accession of North Korea to the status of a nuclear power is good for the World. Indeed, since January 2018, tension in the Korean Peninsula has decreased significantly because North Korea has the nuclear deterrent. If North Korea gave up its nukes, tension in the Korean Peninsula will again increase and North Korea will be bombed and invaded by USA.
At the end of 2017, North Korea became a nuclear power with ICBMs that can strike any city in USA, including Washington DC. Since then, tension in the Korean Peninsula has decreased significantly. It is therefore in the interest of the World that North Korea keeps its nuclear arsenal and its ICBMs.
there will be no deal because if kim is follish enough to give up his weapons ,in matter of time he will be deposed!! he has no further to look than at iraq libya syria to see what will happen without them. trumps bluster has been tamped down because of the north weapons. and lurking at trumps side are two of the worst warmongering neocons that the u.s has ""BOLTON AND POMPEO"" plus an army of media talking heads that are neocon israeli agenda agents .netanyahu laid out the plan for Iran and thats the same one for north korea. NO DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well he was doing pretty good until he got to the propaganda part, about attacking North Korea which amounts to attacking China and Russia at the same time,now Trump may be stupid and he is, nothing but a dupe for his handlers but not even Trump is that stupid.!!
Everybody gains except warmongers. We know who they are.
Your dear departed mother was much too wise to be allowed to become president of the US. 🙂
He has found one already, from the way he is going about talks on Iran and the threats it poses for middle East in Riyadh and Tel Aviv.
Promise POTUS Trump and dangle Nobel prize and put him up in the best hotel room surrounded by North and South Koreas’s "beauties" . He won’t have any objections !
Yes, and the imperialists in the driver seat in Washington absurdly see this as a "threat"
All nations are winners. The peace dividend will be huge for North Korea and the surrounding nations. North Korea has a lot of minerals and human capital. Investments opportunities in all sectors of the economy. The surrounding nations should lift the sanctions on North Korea as a reply to North Korea goodwill gestures.
The losers are US security advisor John Bolton, who has been screaming war and the US military complex. The ten largest companies in the US military complex did lose $10,2 BILLION dollars in market value one day after the North and South Korean peace agreement was signed. State secretary Mike Pompeo has just visited Saudi Arabia and Israel, he probably find another war for the US military complex.
Given US attack on Libya and its reneging on Iran deal, it would be unwise for DPRK to give up its Nuke program, no matter what the Moon’s carror and US sticks.
Finally a well thought out article from this so called expert——-as my late mother said "There is hope from the ocean BUT none from the grave"!!
I doubt NK would give up its nukes without an assurance that US troops would leave SK for good.