Kim trip to China to play Trump?
BEIJING: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is visiting China. Again. Chinese state media confirmed that Kim was visiting Beijing this week – his third sojourn to the Chinese capital in less than three months.
The visit comes a week after US President Donald Trump met Kim in Singapore and a day after the US confirmed it would cancel “war games” with South Korea scheduled for August. News of his trip came hours after Trump threatened China with tariffs on billions of dollars worth of goods.
Though neither the Chinese nor the North Korean side has released details about his itinerary, the timing of his trip sends a message about Beijing’s place at the centre of East Asian diplomacy and its power over Pyongyang.
With US-China trade ties on the rocks, Kim is well-placed to play both powers, talking sweetly to Trump while pursuing a closer relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Although it seems there is a booming romance between Kim Jong-un and Trump, Kim understands the hierarchy. He knows that Xi is the Asian Godfather,” said Yanmei Xie, a China policy analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing. “He is making a pragmatic calculation that China can provide economic assistance to integrate North Korea diplomatically and economically into North-east Asia.”
Kim’s visit to China this week will renew questions about what happens post-Singapore. Though Trump has taken great pains to cast last week’s summit as an unqualified success, the next steps are not clear.
What has came out of the summit, so far, seems like a version of China’s “dual suspension” strategy – a plan that asks North Korea to suspend nuclear testing in return for a suspension of military exercises.
With testing halted, for now, and August’s war games off, China may be willing to cut North Korea some slack.
In Beijing, Kim is likely to ask Xi to ease up on economic sanctions – something the US strongly opposes.
Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Beijing at a news conference with Foreign Minister Wang Yi that China “acknowledged that the sanctions regime will remain in place until denuclearisation is complete”.– The Washington Post