by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright October 2018
Through research, briefly summarize the ebbs and flows of US-North Korean relations since Trump has become President, which lead to the historic summit in June, 2018. Given your understanding of the 'joint statement' signed in Singapore, what do you think the main challenges will be in order to realize the statement's goals? Where applicable, include references to theories and concepts we have learned in class thus far in your analysis.
In 2011 Kim Jung-un became leader of North Korea, in 2016 Donald Trump became president of the United States. These were dramatic changes to the leadership of both countries and to the relations between them. A recent highlight of those changes was a summit between them held in Singapore in June 2018 and the "Joint Statement" that came out of it. This was the first ever meeting between leaders of the US and North Korea.
So... what has changed, and what has not changed, in relations between North Korea and the US?
North Korea was created as the result of an accident of history at the end of World War Two. When the Japanese surrendered in 1945 the practical question was "Who to surrender to?" The north half of Korea surrendered to Russian troops (Russia had declared war on Japan just ten days earlier) and the south half to US troops coming north from The Philippines. Instead of being a soon-disappearing administrative glitch this evolved into creating two nations. The difference got real sharp teeth when the Korean War began in 1950 and then dragged on and on and on, transforming into a proxy war between the US and Communist China. The shooting diminished in 1953 with an armistice signing, but didn't end then, and a peace treaty has never been signed.
These days the cultural differences between the Koreas are big. From the North Korean perspective South Korea "has sold out to The Man" and is no longer really, truly Korean. The Big Vision of North Korea is to preserve a truly Korean culture. In the eyes of North Koreans the nation faces big threats to both that Big Vision and to the nation's existence, many groups want it to reunify with The South, and Korea experienced colonization by Japan from 1910 through 1945 -- could colonizing happen again? This is why it supports both a big standing military and developing nuclear weapons.
Kim Jung-un is the third generation of Kims to rule North Korea. It is a de facto hereditary rulership, the sort that harks back to agricultural age societies. But he is new, so there are differences between his ruling style and that of his dad, Kim Jung-il.
One of the differences is he gets out a little more than his dad did, and that's why there was a Trump-Kim summit.
Donald Trump is likewise a different style of president than his predecessor, Barack Obama, and this also contributed to the summit happening.
Here is a list of significant events that have happened in the 2010's that lead to the Singapore Summit:
o North Korea changes leadership from Kim Jung-il to Kim Jung-un
o North Korea adds testing ICBM missiles to its continued testing of nuclear bombs
o Donald Trump gets elected and speaks and Tweets agitatedly about North Korea's continued testing
o China gets less supportive of the Kim regime
o Kim Jong-un gets out of the country more than his dad did and meets with other leaders including China's.
As these events unfolded a summit meeting was set up between Kim and Trump. It takes place in Singapore in June 2018.
The two leaders met, walked around, talked, dined, had photo ops together, and signed a joint statement. The statement said the two nations agreed to work on:
o establishing better relations
o establishing a lasting peace on the peninsula
o denuclearizing the peninsula
o getting more POW/MIA remains from North Korea back to the US
Little has happened since the Singapore summit. The progress has been slow enough that Trump got frustrated and told Foreign Secretary Mike Pompeo to cancel a visit in August to Pyongyang where he would have met with Kim Jong-un. (Donati) This slow pace is nothing new in US-North Korean talks and historically this delay is just the first step on a road that leads to betrayal by the North Koreans in what they have agreed to do, and their declaring that they have been betrayed by the US. This pattern is a strong one, it has been repeated many times.
When will the pattern change?
The pattern will change when North Korea's Big Vision changes. This will happen when the people supporting Kim see that their children are getting raised at great disadvantage to the children of South Korea and other parts of the developed world. When they see this, and feel it is important, they will change their world view and change their ways. Then the Big Vision can change to something that brings North Korea into the community of globalized nations, and the people of North Korea can then start making significant contributions to that community.
From the IR perspective North Korea consistently plays a "realist" theme -- the state is everything. They are one of the most consistent players of this theme. China used to play this theme strongly as well, but over the last two decades they have become much more interested in supporting other themes such as liberalism and international commerce. As a result for them North Korea has become an anachronism rather than a powerful symbol. This is why the relation is changing, and why North Korea's relation with other nations can change.
While we have some new lead players on this US-North Korea game board -- Trump and a new Kim -- the pattern of how US-North Korea talks plays out has not yet changed.
The pattern is that there will be talks, there will be promises made, and those promises will be ignored when North Korean leadership thinks there is more to be gained for its Big Vision by breaking the promises.
This will change when North Korea's Big Vision changes, and those important players supporting Kim decide that becoming a more conventional part of the global community will benefit their revised Big Vision more than the current isolationist policy does.
This 8 Oct 18 WSJ article, Pence Unloaded on China; Here’s Why That’s Important Vice president’s blunt speech could be inflection point in Washington-Beijing relations by Gerald F. Seib, talks about Vice President Pence accusing China of violating the realist principle that governments should not meddle in other country's domestic politics.
From the article, "In his most headline-grabbing assertion, he also charged that China is attempting to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections and laying the groundwork to try to defeat President Trump’s quest for re-election."
Jessica Donati and Peter Nicholas, 24 Aug 2018. Trump Says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Won’t Go to North Korea President signals frustration with deadlocked nuclear talks. Wall Street Journal
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