Isolation tactics start to wane

DANDONG, CHINA/SEOUL: North Korean officials have toured China to discuss economic development. Speculators are snapping up property along their common border. And South Korea is studying ways to boost engagement with its isolated neighbour to the north.

Across the region, there are signs that US President Donald Trump’s campaign of “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons is weakening ahead of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore tomorrow.

Mr Trump, along with leaders like South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, have credited the pressure campaign with bringing Mr Kim to the negotiating table through a combination of international sanctions, political isolation, and threats of military action.

However, unless there is a major provocation or resumption of nuclear testing or missile launches by North Korea, strategists and academics say it is unlikely that maximum pressure will ever fully return.

“Trump’s campaign is over,” said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. “The diplomatic openings with North Korea have already been taking a toll on the maximum pressure campaign.” Mr Trump has himself said he doesn’t want to use the term “maximum pressure” any more because of improving relations with North Korea.

Joseph Yun, the United States’ former top negotiator with North Korea, told a Senate hearing on Tuesday: “Practically it is not possible to continue maximum pressure when you’re talking with your adversary. I don’t think you can have serious engagement as well as maximum pressure.”

Preparations are already underway in China, South Korea and Russia, which share land borders with North Korea, for better ties with the isolated nation. Officials from South Korea visited a shuttered joint economic project in Kaesong, North Korea, on Friday, part of a government effort to prepare for a possible easing of sanctions.

RENEWED TIES

Along China’s border with North Korea, speculators are buying land and traders are stockpiling cheap North Korean coal amid hopes that restrictions will soon be lifted. “It’ll be good if North Korea opens up,” said a hat seller in the border city of Dandong, who only gave her name as Yang. “The people there are so poor, it’s like China in the 1980s.”

She said the number of North Koreans shopping in the city had dropped in recent months after the sanctions were tightened. But now, she said, property prices in Dandong were being driven up by speculators betting that trade would revive.

Other local people in Dandong said North Korean workers were returning, prompting the opening of some restaurants and hotels.

The owner of one Korean restaurant was training staff on presenting a new menu in preparation for more visitors from other parts of China, including people intending to visit North Korea.

On June 5, state carrier Air China announced it would resume regular flights between Beijing and Pyongyang, which officials had indefinitely suspended in November, citing poor demand. Although the first Air China flight had only around 20 passengers, tour operators said busloads of Chinese tourists were in Pyongyang, their numbers surging in recent weeks because of the lowered tensions.

“I went to the train station [in Pyongyang] and it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it,” said the founder of the Dandong-based INDPRK tour company, who goes by the name Griffin Che. “I’d guess about 100 Chinese tourists arrived by train today. In the past I would see a maximum of 30-40 tourists.”

Mr Che said the prospect of new economic opportunities in North Korea has him interested in branching out beyond tourism into investment and coal trading. US lawmakers have raised concerns that traders in China are already skirting sanctions, but Beijing-based diplomats say that there is no evidence that China is abandoning its UN Security Council commitments.

POLITICAL ISOLATION

Diplomats say all the major players, including Russia, China, and South Korea, are expected to continue to enforce the letter of any United Nations sanctions. Some of that political isolation has been reduced, however, by Kim Jong Un’s meetings with leaders of China and South Korea, and this week’s summit with Mr Trump.

At the end of May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov landed the first meeting between a Russian official and Mr Kim as head of state, and extended an invitation for the North Korean leader to visit Russia. Russia has long been sceptical of the sanctions regime, and South Korea’s Moon has proposed a three-way study on potential joint projects, including railways, gas and power linking Siberia to the Korean peninsula.

“Even if the summit fails and US-North Korea tensions resurface, Russia is unlikely to support new rounds of sanctions on North Korea,” said Artyom Lukin, an academic in Vladivostok. Mr Kim has met Chinese President Xi Jinping two times in recent months and analysts say Beijing’s willingness to maintain pressure on North Korea is waning.