Analysts had varied expectations of the Hanoi summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. However, the no-deal outcome flummoxed many an observer.
In the press conference following the summit on Thursday, Trump said Kim wanted all sanctions lifted, a demand Washington couldn't accept so he walked away from the talks. Hours later, North Korea's delegation denied the claim in a late-night news conference, saying they asked for only a partial lifting of sanctions.
So, who is telling the truth?
I think North Korea is, as Pyongyang is well aware that it's impossible to completely scrap the sanctions at one go. So it found another way - partially abandoning its nuclear weapons in exchange for a truncated sanctions relief, which is reasonable.
After the first Kim-Trump summit in June 2018, North Korea and the US held extensive talks in order to find ways to bridge differences and implement the Singapore Declaration. They must have found the possibilities. Otherwise, the Hanoi summit wouldn't have taken place.
Judging from Kim's approach and the news release from Pyongyang, North Korea must have expected that Trump would agree to a deal, which the two sides were believed to have negotiated and given their purported nods to.
However, Trump lived up to his style of throwing up surprises and took North Korea aback. The US is asking North Korea to dismantle more nuclear complexes before considering easing the sanctions, a demand Pyongyang cannot accept. This is Trump's art of the deal - raising Kim's expectations and then piling more pressure, so as to make the latter give in to US demands. Pyongyang mustn't have realized that Washington would jack up the price for an agreement.
Trump wanted an agreement, but changed his mind before his departure to Hanoi by mentioning on several occasions that he was in no rush to reach a deal.
Those watching the talks between North Korea and the US should know that the situation on the Peninsula has entered a new stage.
North Korea has developed mature technologies for nuclear weapons and missiles and no longer needs more testing. Therefore, it has embarked on a dual strategy of investing in the economy and the nuclear program at the same time. In fact, it implies that the country is trying to shore up its economy. The situation North Korea finds itself in has boosted Kim's confidence and consolidated his political status. When negotiating with Washington over its security and economy, Pyongyang has a bigger bargaining chip now.
However, is North Korea more secure than before? Not necessarily. Knowing that Pyongyang has nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, the US has piled up more pressure, escalating tensions between the two. Feeling threatened by North Korea's potential to inflict damage, Washington has sufficient reasons to undertake preemptive strikes against Pyongyang.
More importantly, nuclear weapons, which Pyongyang has believed can bring the country security guarantee, have rather been impediments to its development. The UN's harshest-ever sanctions against North Korea are a stumbling block for Pyongyang's dual strategy while increasing the country's isolation in the international arena.
But North Korea has not been without opportunities to change. After South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a supporter of the Sunshine policy, assumed office, he spared no effort at a détente on the Korean Peninsula. Trust between him and Kim has developed. In this backdrop, Kim made his first China visit in March 2018, improving ties with Beijing. With China and South Korea's support, Kim made it to the negotiating table in Singapore. This is a huge change in the nature of the Peninsula crisis. It showed that Kim had changed and was determined to use denuclearization as his last and the biggest bargaining chip in exchange for a security guarantee, normalization of North Korea-US relations and economic assistance from other countries.
Trump must have realized Kim's sincerity in seeking to strike a deal. He wanted a major breakthrough within a short period of time, seeking to go down in history. He is known to discourage squandering money on US security obligations worldwide, including military presence abroad.
But Trump faces an emboldened opposition at home, including the establishment, which has serious concerns over a deal with Kim. On the one hand, they think Kim is unreliable. On the other, they are convinced that the current US global military system needs to be strengthened, unlike what Trump believes.
If Trump were on firm political ground in the US, such opposition wouldn't bother him. But in fact his political standing is fragile. The day he was negotiating with Kim in Hanoi, his former personal attorney Michael Cohen ripped into him in a Congressional testimony, calling him a "conman" and a "racist."
Trump knows he has to obtain a grand diplomatic victory on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. Hence, his deal with Pyongyang should be flawless. Otherwise, the outcome will only bring him more trouble at home.
So he scaled down his target for the summit, asking more than what he was ready to offer. If North Korea said yes, he would be the winner. If not, he can postpone the case with good reason. Obviously, what he demanded crossed Kim's bottom line and no compromise could have been reached.
Despite the setback during the Hanoi talks, mutual trust between the two developed recently has not been harmed. This time, they both thought the other side was not going to the summit for nothing. Both had wanted to reach a deal and are now stuck on the issue of what to offer in exchange for what they want. Talks will continue. The Hanoi summit helped them get to know each other better, which could help them become more practical in future negotiations. Hence, the second Kim-Trump summit is still meaningful.
*This article was originally published on Global Times at http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1140863.shtml
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