U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with North Korea's foreign minister on Wednesday and says he will visit Pyongyang next month to pave the way for a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean President Kim Jong Un.
The announcement follows a bilateral agreement signed by President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in New York earlier in the week. President Trump took that opportunity to reiterate his optimism about his relationship with the North Korean leader, but - writes former Senior British Diplomat Tim Willasey-Willsey, there are serious concerns among U.S. allies that competing agendas won't work in the U.S.' favor.
It seems that Trump has still not realised that Moon and Kim are coordinating their diplomatic efforts to limit the United States’ options. Removing the U.S. military choice is clearly attractive to both Koreas, but it also makes the tightening of economic sanctions and the denuclearisation of North Korea much harder to achieve.
Last week, during his visit to North Korea, Moon made a speech at the May Day stadium in Pyongyang. Referring to his discussions with Chairman Kim Jong-un he said;
“We affirmed our pledge to turn our beautiful territory from Baekdusan Mountain to Hallasan Mountain into a land of permanent peace, free from nuclear weapons and nuclear threats, and to bequeath it to our future generations.”
He then continued, saying that Koreans “had lived together for five thousand years but apart for just 70 years. Here, at this place today, I propose we move forward toward the big picture of peace, in which the past 70-year-long hostility can be eradicated and we can become one again.”
Whereas the West sees the Korean issue through the lens of nuclear disarmament, both Koreas now have their sights set on eventual unification. For Kim Jong-un, this is partly a continuation of his regime’s primary objective, which both his father and grandfather also espoused. But it also has a new element. Kim realises that North Korea needs economic development and he would far prefer to open up his economy, in a controlled and limited fashion, to South Korea, than to his overbearing big brother to the north, China.
As for President Moon, he is less worried about North Korean nuclear weapons (which are most unlikely ever to be used against South Korea) than he is about United States military intervention. For as long as he is engaged in peaceful dialogue with Pyongyang, he makes it all-but-impossible for the U.S. to take action. At present, Moon is doing even better, because he has persuaded President Trump that a negotiated solution with the Kim regime is possible.
However, Moon has led Trump into a serious miscalculation. By encouraging him to meet Kim in Singapore, he significantly reduced U.S. leverage over North Korea. A meeting with the U.S. President should have been held back as the final card to be played in the disarmament game. By playing it too early, we have seen a de-facto relaxation in sanctions implementation, particularly by China and Russia; and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in spite of three visits, has proved unable to extract an inventory of Pyongyang’s nuclear assets. Instead, the U.S. has been accused by the North Koreans of using “gangster-like” diplomacy.
Nobody is talking about imminent unification. The likely trajectory will be through a lengthy period on “intra-Korean” cooperation and coexistence. However, the setting up of a Liaison office at Kaesong is a first step. More ambitious economic cooperation will require the end of U.S. and UN sanctions and it is here that the denuclearisation and unification agendas overlap. Moon and Kim will need to keep the U.S. happy by offering the promise of denuclearisation. North Korea is a past master at playing these long games in which the expectation of progress is never matched by actual delivery. Now, Pyongyang has a willing and witting partner in Seoul.
But there are real dangers for both Koreas.
President Moon’s calculation is that the South Korean economy is too advanced and successful for there to be any danger of North Korean domination. He doubtless also thinks that the South Korean military, with their state-of-the art weapons systems, can outmatch the north. On this latter point, he might be mistaken. The North Korean army is huge and highly-disciplined. Furthermore, it is well-versed in “hybrid warfare” from cyber through to special operations.
Furthermore again, South Korea’s democratic traditions are still fragile when compared with the Chaebol system, whereby large companies, like Samsung and LG, have considerable influence in both the economy and wider society. Doubtless Pyongyang, which strategises everything in the minutest detail, has ideas for exploiting such weaknesses.
There are risks for North Korea, too. Its rigid control over its population could be undermined by rising prosperity and the inevitable infiltration of democratic ideas via traditional and social media. Autocracies are always at their most vulnerable when social and economic conditions begin to improve. Kim may think he can rely on party discipline to control popular sentiment, but he too, may be wrong.
In the meantime, however, the Kim-Moon double act appears to be running rings around U.S. diplomacy while the State Department is still understaffed and has lost some of its foremost Korean specialists. Watching from the wings is China, which is likely to be the big winner out of this process. Not only is South Korea gradually drifting from the U.S. sphere of influence toward a closer relationship with Beijing, but there is a good prospect, in the medium-term, of U.S. forces in South Korea being drawn down and possibly removed altogether.
China would ideally like to see North Korea dismantle its nuclear arsenal, but its priority is the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region and the increasing isolation of Japan and Taiwan in North East Asia.
Meanwhile, President Moon will hope that Trump’s fury does not turn against him when he realises that South Korea has been pursuing interests far removed to those of the U.S.
Tim Willasey-Wilsey is Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Kings College London and a former senior British diplomat.
