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Visitors look at the railroad bridge on the Gyeongui line linking South and North Korea, which as once again been blocked to traffic, at Imjingak in Gyeonggi Province on Mar. 11. (by Kim Seong-gwang, staff photographer)
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Domestic opposition in US could threaten a proposed summit between President Trump, Kim Jong-un
The inter-Korean summit scheduled for April and the North Korea-US summit scheduled for May have attached an unexpected lifeline to the “temporary peace” on the Korean Peninsula created during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. South Korean President Moon Jae-in has played an outstanding role as mediator, earning positive responses from North Korea and the US. The problem is that this dramatic opportunity is still extremely fragile and must be handled and managed as carefully as glass, as Moon put it. In other words, continuing effort is required for the summits to be successful. The biggest variable leading up to the North Korea-US summit in May is the domestic political situation in the US, experts say. Not only hardliners in the Republican Party but also Democrats and members of the foreign policy establishment are expressing skepticism about President Donald Trump’s announcement on Mar. 9. For now, the important question is what stance these American hardliners will adopt. “The hardliners with an eye on America’s strategic influence are dangerous opponents,” said Kim Joon-hyeong, professor at Handong Global University. Since the issue of North Korea and its nuclear program is linked to American strategy in East Asia, a North Korea-US summit could challenge the US’s strategy for China, as well its military alliances with South Korea and Japan. This is leading to expectations that there will be stiff opposition from hardliners inside the Trump administration. Since Trump decided to hold a summit with North Korea before the midterm elections, as he finds himself in an awkward position because of a sex scandal and the ongoing investigation led by Robert Mueller into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, public opinion could end up being a major variable. “President Trump made the decision [to hold talks with North Korea] despite massive opposition inside the [US] government and a jumble of [domestic] controversies. Establishment bureaucrats will likely be speaking their mind during the upcoming preparations,” said Wi Seong-rak, former South Korean ambassador to Russia. During an interview with the foreign press on Mar. 10, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “If you want to talk to [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un… you need experienced diplomats,” highlighting the Trump administration’s current lack of diplomats capable of participating in negotiations with North Korea. Another dangerous factor that cannot be disregarded is the influence of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who appears flummoxed by the abrupt shift in directions. It was initially expected that the greatest threat to the opportunity for peace that was sparked by the Pyeongchang Olympics was the South Korea-US joint military exercises that will resume in April. There was a widespread sense that there could be a repeat of the crisis in April of last year, when North Korea took steps to protest South Korea and the US’s large-scale joint exercises, triggering a harsh response from the US. But another April crisis was nipped in the bud when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defied everyone’s expectations by telling Moon’s special delegation, which visited the North on Mar. 5, that he understood the exercises had to be held on the same scale as previous years. “For now, we seem to have bypassed the concerns about the South Korea-US joint exercises this April,” Unification Minister Cho Myung-gyon said during an appearance on a KBS show about inter-Korean relations on Mar. 10. Verifiable denuclearization likely to present a challenge Another important factor is what positions North Korea and the US adopt about the conditions and agenda for the talks prior to the actual summit in May. There is likely to be a battle of nerves between the two sides about the question of “verifying” denuclearization, the biggest issue affecting North Korea-US relations. “The issue of verifying [denuclearization] can involve several stages, and it’s unclear how much would be necessary to satisfy [the US]. It would not be easy to verify that [the North’s suspected nuclear arsenal has been eliminated] and if they try, it could take ten or twenty years,” Kim Joon-hyeong said. Inspections of North Korea’s nuclear facilities are a possible outcome of talks with the US, but the US demanding them as a precondition for talks is an approach for which there is no precedent in past denuclearization negotiations. Another “risk factor” is North Korea might ask for sanctions to be lifted. If North Korea has concluded that it is not realistic to demand the immediate cessation of South Korea-US joint military exercises or the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula, Kim is likely to call for the lifting of sanctions on the North to ease its economic problems, given his “two-track” approach of simultaneously developing nuclear weapons and the economy. “The US has made clear that it will not lift sanctions at the present stage. The two sides will find themselves sharply at odds from the very beginning,” said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. Chinese response remains a possible wild card Another possible factor is the response of China, which has taken a back seat amid the rapid progress in inter-Korean and North Korea-US relations. “On the macro scale, North Korea has chosen to go in one direction in the conflict between the US and China, so some complicated calculations are in store for China,” said Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies. Even granting that North Korea-China relations are at a nadir, the idea of North Korea keeping China, once a fellow member of the socialist bloc, at arm’s length while holding its first summit with the US, its enemy, would be hard for China to swallow. This is leading to predictions that it will be no easy task to maintain the “momentum for peace” that has been achieved with such difficulty. Even so, experts think it is unlikely that the talks will fall through given Trump’s surprise announcement of the May summit. Nor is North Korea likely to sabotage the summit, considering that it was Kim Jong-un who proposed them in the first place. By Kim Ji-eun and Jung In-hwan, staff reporters Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
