The projected summit meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean President Kim Jong-un have all the signs of collapsing before the parties could even meet. Many have their misgivings the two central players have the leverage to remove the powder keg that has brought the Korean Peninsula in a perpetual state of war. Thawing, it was thought, could start the rebuilding of the bridge that began last February when the two politically divided states agreed to have a unified Team in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at PyeongChang. This was followed by the meeting at Panmunjom last April 26 between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
While all these positive moves were building up, Kim visited Beijing. Many interpreted the visit to reassure China’s President Xi Jinping that it has an important role to play, and will not be left out in any peace agreement it will conclude with the US. North Korea expects China to guarantee it will not be attacked in the event it agrees to denuclearize.
Unfortunately, as the race to firm up the coagulating peace in the peninsula, President Trump made a surprise statement of being ready to meet Kim anytime. Some political observers could sense the suggestion to meet Kim was not really an attempt to fill up the missing card that would finalize the peace process but an attempt to remain on board and remind the North Korean leader there could be no peace in the peninsula without the US playing a crucial role in how that peace would be defined.
Kim’s visit was followed by the visit to Pyongyang by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on April 30. The visit already bore signs that North Korea was becoming uptight to go through with the meeting with Trump, having in mind the foreboding threat made by the latter that he would simply walk out should there be no fruitful outcome in that meeting.
This was followed by the pronouncement made by National Security Adviser John Bolton on May 17, suggesting that the “Libya model” of denuclearization could be applied to North Korea,” which everybody knows that after Libya abandoned its nuclear development program, it was destroyed through savage bombing. Muammar Qadaffi was murdered.
This promptly caused North Korean first vice minister of foreign affairs, Kim Kye-gwan, to react to that statement of Bolton. Moreover, Trump and his newly appointed advisers did not even consider that North Korea unilaterally released from prisons on May 9 three Americans of Korean descent allegedly working for the CIA.
The release came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a visit to Pyongyang to prepare the groundwork for the upcoming summit. The release of the three Americans was without any precondition. North Korea continued to look forward to the success of the upcoming summit.
In a surprise move, North Korea also announced on May 12 that it will dismantle its nuclear test site on May 23-25, a dramatic move intended to finetune the success of forthcoming summit. It also planned to invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to inspect the process.
Despite the confidence-building efforts made by North Korea, President Trump appeared to have a wrong notion about his forthcoming talks with Kim. He wanted to talk with Kim from a standpoint of a victor with the other party signing an unconditional surrender like what Japan did in 1945. He expected the agreement with no promise or obligation on the part of the US to exchange in one might say a “negotiated” deal. Trump was acting like a typical businessman wanting to bluff and intimidate the other party with the thought that Kim is not in a position to say no.
This is the observation shared by many. In fact, right after the thawing, Trump was already drumbeating that it was his theory to unleash “fire and fury” to seek peace that forced Kim to break the ice without him knowing that Kim could well read his motive and decipher every move he takes. The succession of veiled threat by his two newly appointed hardliners already indicated that the summit could abruptly be canceled. They could well predict that it was Trump who is afraid to face an embarrassment should his counterpart refuse to sign on his terms.
On May 17, Bolton aggravated the situation by suggesting a rather weird proposal demanding that within six months North Korea should ship some of its nukes and missiles to the US. Maybe his suggestion was well meaning, but certainly a great majority entertains the thought that he is not really out to help his President.
This was followed by the resumption of a military exercise called “Max Thunder 18.” The Trump administration is fully aware that this has been the cause of the tension in the Korean Peninsula.
Another possibility is that the US really does not want any peace agreement but is only looking for a pretext to pin the blame on North Korea. There are two possibilities to this. First, if the US initially offered to one-and-one-talks with Kim, it was only necessary to allow it to be on board of the denuclearization talks. If North Korea accepts to denuclearize with China, Russia, Japan and South Korea guaranteeing it would not be attacked, it could place the two nuclear powers in a direct confrontation with the US which North Korea would, no doubt, seek an alliance in lieu of the absence of a US guaranty.
Second, that the US actually fears more of losing South Korea and Japan as its regular buyer of sophisticated but costly weapons under the façade of maintaining the balance of power in the Korean peninsula. Many suspect the big US arms industry is behind the collapse of the pending talks. The tension that never simmers down is the factor that is giving ante to justify why the US has to constantly keep itself on high alert. This is seen on the conduct and actuation of Israel and Saudi Arabia, which by their unusual acquisition of armaments readily measures their appetite to wage wars with their neighbors.
In short, the demand of the US for North Korea to denuclearize is a smokescreen to make it impossible to come out any peace agreement that could technically ease itself out as the main player that will decide the peace in the peninsula or that the US arms industries, by the current outlook of its economy, simply forbid peace to prevail, for that would mean an end to its lucrative business of supplying arms to South Korea, Japan and even Taiwan.
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