Great kings should not talk face-to-face

The on-again off-again on-again United StatesNorth Korea summit recalls a scene from a BBC television series on the Crusades. When England’s Richard, the Lion Heart, wants to meet Saladin, the Muslim chief says great kings should not talk face-to-face until all disagreements have been removed. Bearing that in mind, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have wisely charged their diplomats to prepare the ground for the rescheduled Singapore meeting on June 12. But the recent joint military exercises by the US and South Korean air forces at the Gwangju air base in South Korea hardly encourage optimism about the outcome. Pyongyang cannot be faulted for viewing these exercises on its very doorstep as practice runs for invading the North.

The formal position is that if the summit succeeds, the US will extend diplomatic recognition to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as North Korea is styled. It will undertake to respect North Korea’s security and extend economic assistance. In return, the North must agree to denuclearisation. Herein lies the snag. By denuclearisation, Mr Trump means North Korea must give up all its nuclear weapons and delivery systems and undertake never again to enrich weapons grade uranium. The US justified its earlier refusal to take up Chairman Kim’s offer to negotiate by saying there could be no trust until North Korea first gave up its nukes. It would appear, however, that Chairman Kim’s understanding of denuclearisation is that the US will remove all nuclear weapons from the region, which means withdrawing its protective umbrella over both South Korea and Japan. The US maintains a garrison of 35,000 troops in South Korea in addition to the “permanent aircraft carrier” of Guam, naval bases and seaborne troops dotted all over the Indo-Pacific region, and approximately 50,000 military personnel in Japan with 40,000 dependents, and another 5,500 civilian employees of the US defence department.

China apart, North Korea is the obvious target of this massed strength as well as of the annual USSouth Korea joint military exercises. North Korea, where memories of the brutal US bombing during the 1950-53 Korean War are still fresh, called this year’s Max Thunder exercises an “intentional military provocation”. They recalled Jim Mattis, Mr Trump’s defence secretary, saying, “The only way to ‘locate and destroy — with complete certainty — all components of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes is through a ground invasion.” Nevertheless, by sending his former intelligence chief, Kim Yong-chol, to the US, Chairman Kim demonstrates he is serious about the summit. The retired army general is the most senior North Korean official to visit the US since 2000. He is matched by Sung Kim, the South Korea-born US diplomat in charge of the American negotiating team.

References to Libya and regime change by the US national security adviser John Bolton and the vicepresident, Mike Pence, can only reflect adversely on American good faith and revive North Korean suspicions. It will be remembered that although Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear programme in return for economic cooperation, the Americans backed the so-called popular rising against his regime and indirectly condoned his brutal murder. In mentioning this, Chairman Kim might also have mentioned the late Saddam Hussain and retorted, “Even if I do give up my nuclear ambitions, you will manufacture false evidence to condemn me, flaunting it at the United Nations as Colin Powell did, to justify an invasion!” No wonder the North views the Washington-Seoul axis with profound suspicion.

Mr Trump’s derisive remarks about North Korea’s tubby chairman as “Rocket Man” add insult to injury. Not only is such language unseemly in diplomacy, but people may wonder whether the American president would have been similarly personally mocking in a racist sense about any European leader, no matter how deep their political differences. It is a measure of North Korea’s determination to go through at least the preliminaries to the summit that it swallowed personal insults in poor taste as well as its objections to the joint exercises and followed through with the promised destruction of its Punggye-ri nuclear site. This was just before Mr Trump himself called off the Singapore summit, saying it would be “inappropriate” at this time. In a much more mature response, Pyongyang — which had warned days earlier of a potential “nuclear showdown” — said it was still ready to sit down with the US leader “at any time.”

Given this background, it must be difficult for any non-American, especially for anyone as insular and suspicious as the North Koreans, to place much trust in US promises. The claim by a senior South Korean official, Chung Eui-yong, who had led a delegation to the North and met the chairman himself, that the North Korean leader appeared to suggest he understood the need for the US-South Korean exercises and would not react to them may have been a misjudgment on his part. A report by Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said the drills were against the Panmunjom Declaration that Chairman Kim and South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, signed last month when the two countries agreed to end all hostile acts against each other. North Korea also threatened to cancel the summit over what it called Mr Trump’s “provocative military disturbances with South Korea”.

With experience of postings in Seoul, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Manila where he is currently ambassador, and having been special representative for North Korea policy in Washington, this other Mr Kim (Sung) understands the region better than most Western diplomats. He must know how carefully details must be orchestrated when two of the world’s most dangerously flamboyant showmen are determined to upstage each other and claim victory. Since China has welcomed the move to restore Asia’s political equilibrium and remove a threat to global peace, one expects that Xi Jinping, now crowned emperor for life, will not rock regional stability with adventurist claims. South Korea is almost a party to the event and might well be invited to participate if this can be managed without Mr Trump and Chairman Kim feeling any of their thunder has been stolen.

Predictably, however, some Americans are already gloating over the proposed talks as a tremendous victory. “The North Koreans are coming to the table despite the US making zero concessions” crowed the vice-president recently. “Our policy remains the same: all sanctions remain in place and the maximum pressure campaign will continue until North Korea takes concrete, permanent and verifiable steps to end their nuclear programme.” No wonder Choe Son Hui, a vice-minister in North Korea’s foreign ministry, was provoked to denounce Mr Pence as a “political dummy”, thereby further enraging Mr Trump.

American triumphalism will as surely destroy any prospect there is of the summit succeeding as American bellicosity.

The writer is the author of several books and a regular media columnist.