The doughnut hole in the argument that a nuclear North Korea can be contained, managed, and melded into some facsimile of India or Pakistan is a denial of the ideological basis for Pyongyang’s pursuit of nukes. It is not merely for deterrence, but to engineer its final victory. https://t.co/8JbRt5YdKV
— Edward Oh 🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) January 22, 2019
I have been saying that the Trump administration must be offering something the Kim regime wants in order to agree to a second summit, sanctions relief or a Korean War peace treaty would do it:
U.S. President Donald Trump will most likely offer North Korea some kind of relief from international sanctions or a peace treaty in the near future, a prominent DPRK watcher and legal scholar told NK News last week.
NK News
Speaking in Washington DC ahead of a conference hosted by NK News’s parent organization the Korea Risk Group, Tufts University’s Sung-Yoon Lee said the international community’s growing lack of political will to enforce sanctions will likely allow the U.S. to reward Pyongyang for what he described as its “fake concessions” on the nuclear issue.
“Trump will be willing to lift sanctions formally, I believe, not all sanctions, but he might say, ‘okay the poor starving North Korean people, they are suffering, so let’s lift sanctions on the ban of export of seafood and textiles,’” Lee, Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor in Korean Studies and Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said.
“If the U.S. takes the lead in bending the rules – U.S. rules as well as UN Security Council resolutions – who will object? China? No. South Korea? No. Russia? No. Britain and France which really don’t have a bone in this fight? No,” he added. “So it’s all up to Trump and I think Trump is more than willing to offer premature sanctions relaxation.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Lee also discussed why he believes it’s “too late” to bridge the gap between the U.S. and North Korea on denuclearization definitions, ROK President Moon Jae-in’s role in promoting dialogue with the DPRK, and what he sees as Pyongyang’s long-term goal: forcing U.S. withdrawal from the peninsula and the region.
You can read the whole interview at the link, but Professor Lee believes that sanctions relief and a peace treaty will in the near future be offered by the US.
However, squabbles over the definition of denuclearization could cause North Korea in the next few years to detonate a hydrogen bomb in the atmosphere over the Pacific to make the point their nuclear program is now complete. I don’t see them doing that due to the affect such a detonation would have on satellites. Taking out satellites with an EMP blast I think would lead to a call for regime removal; just imagine the global financial and economic impacts of losing satellites in low Earth orbit. The outrage I believe would be huge.
I don’t think the Kim regime would risk the blowback which would leave them with an above ground test option. If they were going to do an above ground test they would have to do it over the surface of a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. Seems pretty challenging logistically for the North Koreans to pull off such a test, but if they get billions of dollars in cash from the South Koreans and sanctions relief may be they can pull it off.
Jonestown, only with nukes. https://t.co/xUkKICk9rS
— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) January 22, 2019
It looks like the Trump administration is falling for the freeze deal that both the Moon administration and the Chinese have been pushing for:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his administration wants to reduce North Korea’s capacity to build its nuclear and missile development programs and that discussions on that are an “important component” for making sure that both countries deliver on commitments made in Singapore last year.
Joong Ang Ilbo
During an interview with the Sinclair Broadcast Group, transcripts of which were released by the State Department last Friday, Pompeo said that U.S. President Donald Trump has made enormous strides in working with the North to get their commitment to denuclearize and that now was the time “to execute” and “to implement.”
Pompeo didn’t elaborate on how precisely Washington wants to “reduce” the North’s capacity, but the remarks came on the same day The New York Times reported that officials from both countries were currently negotiating a “freeze” of the North’s nuclear fuel and weapons production so that the country’s arsenal doesn’t grow while denuclearization talks drag on.
This could mean that a freeze, which could be interpreted as a short-term goal in getting Pyongyang to denuclearize, would also be discussed when Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-un late next month for their second summit. In their first summit last June in Singapore, both leaders agreed to commit “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” but very little progress – if any – has been made since.
You can read more at the link, but if they are playing for a freeze deal they could have done this all the way back in 2017 when the Moon administration and just about every North Korea expert was pushing this idea.
A freeze deal falls right in line with North Korea’s “pretend denuclearization” strategy. A freeze deal means that the Kim regime will get concessions from the US for little to nothing in return. The big concession they will likely push is a peace treaty to end the Korean War.
Getting the peace treaty in return for a freeze deal would then allow surrogates to question the continued existence of the US troop presence in South Korea. If there is peace then why are US troops stationed in Korea?
The ultimate goal of the North’s nuclear weapons program is to co-opt the ROK into a confederation on North Korean terms. A freeze deal followed by a peace treaty plays right into the Kim regime’s hands. Additionally the freeze deal for treaty plays into China’s hands who have also long wanted to separate the ROK from the US in a bid to increase their hegemony over the region.
Exactly. Trump is so desperate for the perception of a policy victory to change his presidency’s domestic image as a corrupt, incompetent mess, that who knows what he’ll give away. Fairly amazed the S Korean gov’t wants yet another T-Kim summit where T goes in blind & unprepared https://t.co/pzzw6duqWv
— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) January 20, 2019
Here is a lawyer who thinks that North Korea is a great place to invest:
North Korea has an advanced arbitration system even compared to developed countries, and foreign companies face an even playing field in dispute resolution, according to Michael Hay, the founder of North Korea’s only foreign law firm Hay, Kalb & Associates.
Korea Times
“From start to finish, (an arbitration case) could be done in six months… which is much faster than most other countries I have worked in,” Hay said in an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul, Monday.
He has been a foreign legal counsel at HMP Law since December, after 12 years of operating his law firm in the North.
Hay emphasized that the North Korean regime has no choice but to maintain an advanced dispute resolution system in order to continue reeling in foreign investment and companies.
“One thing North Koreans are very conscious of: If they don’t have a dispute resolution system, people will not come and invest in the country. In my experience they are very supportive (of foreign firms),” he said.
You can read the rest at the link, but Mr. Hay says that the businesses that lost money in North Korea did so because they grandstanded about doing business in North Korea. He says businesses that kept their dealings quiet with the regime were more successful.
Gordon Chang is not a fan of the announced Kim-Trump 2 Summit:
On January 18, President Donald Trump met for about ninety minutes with Kim Jong-un’s emissary, Kim Yong-chol, in Washington, D.C. At the conclusion of the session, the White House tweeted that a second summit between Trump and the North Korean leader “will take place near the end of February.”
Let’s hope the February meeting does not occur. Trump had been successful through the middle of May of last year when he was pressuring—but not talking to—the North Koreans. Kim was, uncharacteristically, making all the concessions and Trump was making none. (………..)And there was one more reason for Trump’s success: his so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of interdicting Kim’s revenue. “According to one U.S. government estimate,” the Wall Street Journal stated at the end of last May, “the sanctions regime has cut off half the country’s international revenue.”
The National Interest
Trump, who had the North Koreans where he wanted them, then suddenly changed course. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the administration decided to not sanction almost three dozen parties—some of them Russian and Chinese.
North Korea changes front companies all the time, meaning that not sanctioning new ones hollowed out the pressure campaign quickly. In short, Trump gave Kim de facto relief from the measures. Although there have been scattered designations of entities since then, they have been few in number and mostly inconsequential.
You can read more at the link.
1/18/19: President Donald J. Trump presented w/a letter from Chairman Kim Jong Un by Kim Yong Chol, Vice Chairman of the Worker’s Party of Korea and Chairman of the Korea Asia Pacific Peace Committee, followed by a expanded bilateral meeting in the Oval Office at the @WhiteHouse. pic.twitter.com/FgKtKqkDZn
— Dan Scavino Jr. (@Scavino45) January 20, 2019
Kim-Trump 2 will apparently happen by the end of February:
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will hold a second summit near the end of February at a location to be announced at a later date, the White House said Friday.
Trump and a top North Korean official met at the White House to finalize details of a potential summit on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program.
“President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.”Vietnam is widely reported to be a top candidate site. Both the U.S. and North Korea have embassies there.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the fact that the Kim regime has agreed to the summit means they must feel they are going to get a significant concession from the US. I guess we will see what it is.
It looks like the Butcher of the Cheonan could be making another visit to the US:
Kim Yong-chol, a top North Korean official, is expected to visit Washington this week to prepare for a second North-U.S. summit, after the American president sent a letter to the North Korean leader over the weekend.
Joong Ang Ilbo
A source familiar with the North-U.S. talks said Monday that Kim, the vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, “wanted to visit Washington immediately,” so the two sides are “working on scheduling a visit for Jan. 17 to 18.”
U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over the weekend, reported CNN Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the ongoing denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang.
The letter from Trump was flown to Pyongyang and delivered by hand, according to the CNN source, who also said that Kim Yong-chol could visit Washington as soon as this week to finalize details of the upcoming summit.
You can read more at the link.
