Moon more than happy to play the middleman
When Donald Trump abruptly scrapped their planned summit, Kim Jong Un sought out someone he knew would come over for a chat: South Korean leader Moon Jae In.
Moon’s surprise meeting with Kim on Sunday shows he’s willing to do what it takes to keep diplomacy on track and avoid a return to threats of war over North Korea’s nuclear programme. Moon called the gathering a meaningful attempt to clear up “some difficulties in communication” as the two leaders shared warm words on the northern side of their border.
More significantly, Moon secured the restart of minister-level interKorean talks on June 1, followed by a dialogue between military leaders and a Red Cross meeting to reunite families separated by the war. North Korea, which cancelled the talks earlier this month in a sign of re-emerging tensions, said the two leaders agreed to “meet frequently in the future”. Moon pledged to visit Pyongyang later this year.
For the moment, Moon has maintained an appearance as a neutral middleman who can bridge the gap between Trump and Kim, two reactive leaders who create a high risk of miscalculation. Yet over the longer term, Moon’s desire to cut a peace deal with North Korea during his single fiveyear term means Trump could find it harder to enforce his “maximum pressure” campaign if talks break down again.
Kim has now separately met Moon and Chinese President Xi Jinping twice in the past three months, and both leaders have pledged to strengthen ties with his regime.
“With South Korea and China already talking to the North, it’s hard for Trump to reignite his campaign at this point or after the summit fails,” said Namkoong Young, who has advised South Korea’s Unification Ministry and the Foreign Ministry on policy for almost 10 years.
“In Trump’s thinking, his maximum pressure would’ve resulted in Kim kneeling and returning to dialogue in surrender anyway if it reached the boiling point,” he said. “But Moon interrupted this by reinstating interKorean exchanges.”
South Korea is reviewing ways to address North Korea’s security concerns, including turning the current armistice into a peace agreement, a senior Moon Administration official said yesterday.
The US-South Korea alliance could take a hit if Moon intentionally exaggerated Kim’s commitment to denuclearisation, according to Namkoong, who also teaches interKorean politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
“The stakes of this summit are big,” he said. “If the Trump-Kim summit succeeds, Moon will win big. If it doesn’t, he will lose a lot.”