Kim Jong-un’s shrewd tactics

Kim Jong-un, the Swiss-educated 34-year-old dictator of North Korea, must be pleased with himself. His mixture of nuclear blackmail and Olympic diplomacy has prompted a scramble as the world’s leaders line up to secure face-time with him. Apart from the promise of a meeting with US President Donald Trump, Kim’s greatest win was his visit to Beijing last week, his first overseas trip since becoming supreme leader in 2011.

Beijing waited until Kim’s armoured train was safely back in North Korea before presenting a carefully edited account of the meetings. These were clearly intended to portray him as an errant schoolboy asking for forgiveness from a stern but benevolent President Xi Jinping.

This propaganda effort in itself is an indication of how concerned Beijing is about the impending summit with Trump, and how keen it is to avoid being sidelined in the process of rapprochement between Washington and Pyongyang. Japan and Russia are clamouring for their own meetings with Kim.

In hindsight, North Korea’s series of rocket launches and nuclear tests in 2017 looks very much like classic brinkmanship in preparation for negotiations. The tactic has been no less successful for being so obvious. But the world, particularly the US, should be under no illusions about Kim’s willingness to give up the bomb.

The experiences of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein have convinced him he needs it to guarantee his own survival.

That means under any bilateral agreement the most Trump can hope for would be a reduction and freeze in Pyongyang’s missile programme that removes its ability to hit the continental US with a nuclear weapon. But what will Kim ask for in exchange? As negotiators in the administration of former president George W Bush lamented, North Korea is expert at selling Washington the same horse twice. Is the self-appointed master of the deal really ready to buy the same nag a third time? London, April 1