U.S. could lose crucial ally as Kim courts South Korea
SEOUL — Beyond a New Year’s declaration by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, that he would move to the mass-production of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles in 2018 lies a canny new strategy to initiate direct talks with South Korea in the hope of driving a wedge into its seven-decade alliance with the United States.
Kim, perhaps sensing the tension between President Trump and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, called for an urgent dialogue between the two Koreas before the opening of the Winter Olympics in the South next month. A day later, the South offered to hold such talks next Tuesday.
The strained relationship between the allies has been playing out for months, as Moon, a liberal, argued for economic and diplomatic openings with the North, even as Trump has worked hard to squeeze the North with increasingly punishing sanctions. Moon also angered Trump and his aides in recent months by suggesting he holds what he called a veto over any U.S. preemptive military action against the North’s nuclear program.
Until now, Kim has largely ignored Moon, whom the North Korean media have portrayed as a spineless lackey of the United States. But the dramatic shift in tone and policy, toward bilateral talks between the two Koreas, suggests that Kim sees an opportunity to develop and accentuate the split between Moon and Trump, betting that the United States will be unable to mount greater pressure on the North if it does not have South Korean acquiescence.
The gambit may work. Hours after Kim’s speech, Moon’s office welcomed the North’s proposal, in a way that could further aggravate tensions with the United States.
“We have already expressed our willingness to engage in a dialogue with North Korea at any time, in any place and in any format, as long as both sides can discuss restoring their relations and peace on the Korean Peninsula,” said a presidential spokesman, Park Soo-hyun. Later Tuesday, South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myounggyon said the South had proposed that the two Koreas meet next Tuesday at the border village of Panmunjom to discuss Olympic cooperation and how to improve ties.
The initial statement emphasized the roles of the two Koreas in resolving the nuclear crisis. Trump, in contrast, has pursued a tougher approach, saying there can be no talks without signs that the North is giving up its nuclear and missile testing, and without an understanding that the ultimate goal of any negotiations is a complete, verifiable dismantlement of the North’s nuclear capability.
“The timing of this overture, combined with his newly declared capability to strike the United States, is shifting the calculus,” said Robert Litwak, author of “Preventing North Korea’s Nuclear Breakout” and a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. “Kim sees a rare chance here to take the side of the South Koreans, against President Trump.”
Kim may be partly motivated by an intense need to roll back sanctions that, by all accounts, have begun to bite.
As part of the overture, Kim also agreed to a request by Moon to send a North Korean delegation to the Winter Olympics. The South Korean president is betting that the North is far less likely to disrupt the Olympics, with missile launchings or an act of terrorism, if North Korean athletes are competing.
The diplomatic tug-ofwar comes amid a backdrop of increasing fears over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Over the past year, the North made such fast technological advances that it says it can now strike the East Coast of the United States with a missile. The North has yet to demonstrate a key component of its nuclear threat — the ability to build a warhead that can withstand the heat and stresses of re-entering the atmosphere — but there is little dispute that it is getting much closer to such a capability.
The threat is considered strong enough by the administration that Trump has hinted at the possibility of a preemptive strike as a last resort.
That type of thinking — as well as fiery rhetoric from both Trump and Kim — has shaken South Korea, which would be expected to be on the front line of a war.