Tag: Kim Jong-un

President Trump has completely flipped the script on the Kim regime.  The North Koreans are used to being the ones canceling talks and making the other parties make concessions to get them to come back:

President Donald Trump called off his summit with Kim Jong-un on Thursday after North Korea hurled insults at Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump said it would be ‘inappropriate’ to hold talks at this time after the Kim regime again tested the limits of his patience.

‘You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never be used,’ he said in a letter to Kim that the White House distributed.

North Korea‘s vice foreign minister had slammed Pence for his ‘unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya.’

Choe Son Hui also said the future of the summit between Pyongyang and Washington is ‘entirely’ up to the United States, as she condemned an interview Pence gave to Fox News.

Trump said in his letter to Kim that as a result of the ‘tremendous anger and open hostility’ demonstrated by North Korea in the latest back and forth, he was pulling out of the June 12 meeting to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

‘I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,’ Trump said hours after North Korea publicly destroyed much of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. ‘Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.’

The U.S. president went on to say that he hopes to meet Kim one day and that the good dialogue that was building up between the two nations prior to the recent provocations remains promising.

Trump’s letter to Kim followed a string of threats from the North to call off the summit that had been brokered to discuss a commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The president told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that he’d know whether he was moving forward with the Singapore summit ‘next week.’ That was before North Korea’s latest volley, which included the assault on Pence.

‘We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us,’ said Choe Son Hui, according to a report by North Korea’s central news agency on Thursday.

She added: ‘I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice-president.  [Daily Mail]

You can read more at the link, but here is the letter that President Trump sent to Kim Jong-un:

I look at this as not being a cancellation of the talks, but instead part of the ongoing negotiations.  The Trump administration has put North Korea in its place by reminding them who they are and who they are dealing with; thus the description in the difference in nuclear capabilities in the letter.  I also think the message being sent is that the United States will not be pushed around by the North Koreans and they should be respectful towards the Trump administration and thankful for the opportunity to meet with the US President.  This is especially true considering President Trump has made very respectful remarks towards Kim Jong-un and even the cancellation letter is extremely polite towards Kim Jong-un.

We are about to see how serious the Kim regime is about holding these talks and reaching a denuclearization deal because the ball is now officially in their court.  President Trump’s letter leaves it very open for a future meeting if the Kim regime changes its tone.  If they apologize for the remarks towards Vice President Pence that is a signal that they really do want a deal.  However, if they begin another launch cycle or execute a provocation of some kind then that is a sign they were never serious about these talks in the first place.

However, it was good to see that for once the United States got something out of North Korea, the release  of the three American detainees for little to nothing in return.  It is usually the other way around where the US and South Korea makes concessions to North Korea for little to nothing in return.  Once again President Trump has flipped the script on the Kim regime.  It will be interesting to see how the North Koreans respond.

It looks like President Trump is making it very clear that there will be no long drawn out denuclearization process with North Korea like we have seen with past failed deals:

U.S. President Donald Trump mentioned the possibility of delaying his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a meeting with President Moon Jae-in at the White House, Wednesday.

Trump said “all-in-one” denuclearization would be better than an incremental process with incentives, and it should be done over a very short period of time.

“There are certain conditions that we want. And I think we’ll get those conditions. And if we don’t, we won’t have the meeting,” Trump said. “Frankly, there’s a chance to be a great, great meeting for North Korea and a great meeting for the world. If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later.”

He added, “It may not work out for June 12.”

But the U.S. president assured Kim of the safety of his regime, adding South Korea, China and Japan would invest in the North to help make the country “great” if it follows through on denuclearization.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I agree with President Trump that this should be an all or nothing deal for Kim Jong-un.  The North Koreans this time should not receive massive amounts of aid and other incentives for little to nothing in return.  Instead they should demonstrate irreversible intent to denuclearize which the dog and pony show for the closure of the nuclear test site is not.  For example if nuclear material begins to get shipped out of the country and their nuclear plant is dismantled that is evidence of irreversible intent to denuclearize.

Kim Jong-un wants to be 'normal' leader https://t.co/e0X9fobEqf

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) May 13, 2018

North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un looks at a photo of his grandfather and the North’s founder, Kim Il-sung, hung at a state guest house on Bangchuidao Island of China’s northern city of Dalian in this photo captured from the North’s Korean Central TV on May 9, 2018. Kim met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Dalian during his visit there from May 7-8, the second such meeting in just over 40 days. Bangchuidao Island is a seaside resort that was often used in the past for secret North Korea-China leaders’ meetings. (Yonhap)

A mysterious North Korean aircraft caused speculation that Kim Jong-un was visiting China:

Japanese and South Korean media are speculating that a high-ranking North Korean official, possibly even leader Kim Jong Un, is visiting China after an airliner from the North landed in the Chinese port city of Dalian.

The South’s official Yonhap News Agency said the plane arrived Monday amid tight security. Japanese broadcaster NHK ran a picture of the Air Koryo plane that it said had been taken Tuesday afternoon at Dalian airport.

There are no regularly scheduled flights between North Korea and Dalian, although North Koreans are frequent visitors and its port has been instrumental in two-way trade.  [Fox News]

It turned out that Kim Jong-un was in fact in China getting his marching orders from Emperor President Xi before Kim’s summit with President Trump:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their second summit in about 40 days in northeast China, the two nations’ state media reported Tuesday, ahead of an anticipated summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a dispatch from the Chinese city of Dalian, China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Kim and Xi held talks on Monday and Tuesday. The second summit between Kim and Xi appears to highlight efforts by the allies to restore ties that have been chilled by the North’s nuclear and missile development.

Kim and Xi “had an all-round and in-depth exchange of views on China-DPRK relations and major issues of common concern,” Xinhua said. DPRK is an acronym for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  [Yonhap]

That is something the Chosun Ilbo was able to figure out due to last week’s Inter-Korean Summit:

Which brings us to the shoes. Historically, height is thought to be a bone of contention for the Kim dynasty. Some Western sources say that Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, was 5 feet 2 inches tall and wore lifts in his shoes to make himself appear taller. The younger Kim is commonly listed as being around 5 feet 7, though it is not clear where this figure comes from.

Chosun Ilbo, one of South Korea’s most popular newspapers, decided to investigate the mystery. The paper gave footage of Kim meeting Moon to seven experts, who spent hours poring over the footage to see what it could say about the North Korean leader’s physical features.

Perhaps the biggest revelation was in Kim’s footwear. In videos and photographs, they found that Kim appeared to be less than an inch shorter than Moon, who is recorded as being a little over 5 feet 6 inches tall. But they noticed something strange with his shoes: a high slope on the front of the shoe seemed to suggest that Kim was wearing insoles that were pushing his feet upward. One expert suggested that this meant the height difference between the Korean leaders was actually nearly 2 inches and possibly more, making Kim only 5-foot-4.  [Seattle Times]

You can read more at the link, but Kim’s true height means that his body mass index is around 45.  Someone is considered obese at BMI 30.

Shoving? That was a gentle nudge with the back of his hand. Don't put me in the position of defending Kim Jong-un. https://t.co/fjjEehNjNa

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) May 2, 2018

Dennis Rodman Believes He Helped Kim Jong-un Come Around on Trump and U.S. – https://t.co/Ra4RZ3I5rg https://t.co/y0KYGZKpQb

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) April 29, 2018

There is a good read posted over at Foreign Policy by Michael Green from the Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that explains very well the concerns I have been sharing about this supposed peace initiative being executed by North Korea:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s televised summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday was spectacularly effective as pageantry aimed at South Koreans fearful of a U.S. attack on North Korea — and spectacularly empty in terms of meaningful commitment by the North to denuclearization. In fact, everything Kim put on the table was designed to reaffirm North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state and dilute Chinese and South Korean support for sanctions. Many veterans of negotiations with North Korea worry that Kim is now getting ready to play the United States. While the Trump administration’s tough sanctions no doubt had some role in pushing the North toward this summitry, one can also imagine exactly how this was a scenario the North itself sought from the beginning.  [Foreign Policy]

Green then goes on to write a satire email from Vice Marshall Kim Jong Gak, director of the Political Bureau, Korean People’s Army to Kim Jong-un on their peace strategy.  Here is an excerpt from the email:

You will pledge seemingly historic commitments that are all unverifiable and easily reversed, many of which we have deployed successfully in past negotiations. These include your commitment (like your father’s and grandfather’s) to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, your pledge to join the global quest for denuclearization as the other nuclear weapons states have pledged to do under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a promise not to transfer nuclear weapons to third parties, a no-first use pledge, and a promise to halt testing and to shut down our nuclear test site at Punggye-ri (for added drama, you might invite inspectors to the facility).

These commitments all parrot the aspirations of the current members of the nuclear weapons club and will thus confirm our membership in that club as we negotiate arms control with the Americans as a fellow nuclear weapons state. We, of course, made no commitment to cease production and deployment of our deterrent. We can easily reverse all these steps later, at the time of our choosing, yet already many in the imperialist and puppet media are proclaiming these meaningless declarations on your part to be a historic breakthrough.

I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but as I have been saying since this whole peace initiative began, the Kim regime was conducting a facade.  The North Koreans are very good at executing facades and Kim Jong-un has shown a particularly great talent for it, so much so that he has most in the international media believing every word he is saying.

The short term goal of this facade is to create a perception of progress towards peace and denuclearization on the peninsula to justify South Korea reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park, restarting joint tourism projects, and other inter-Korean cooperation initiatives that will be huge cash cows for the Kim regime.  In return the Kim regime will pretend to denuclearize and make other commitments that can easily be reversed at a time of their choosing.

The Kim regime’s long term goal backed by China is to get the United States out of South Korea.  That is why there has been such a strategic messaging emphasis on a peace treaty to end the Korean War.  If there is a peace treaty South Korean leftists could argue why US forces are still needed in South Korea?  The Kim regime’s even longer term goal is to separate the US from Japan as well with their surrogates in the media already pushing ideas of removing the US nuclear umbrella for Japan as part of any denuclearization agreement.

The wild card in all of this is President Donald Trump.  South Korea, China, Russia, and most in the international community are willing to pretend denuclearization and a lasting peace is happening.  Will the United States? For all we know President Trump could be conducting his own facade.  For the US to get international consensus to conduct any strike against North Korea all options will have to be exhausted.  Since this supposed peace process has began President Trump has been saying all the right things and being very reasonable even agreeing to meet with Kim Jong-un.

Going into the negotiations President Trump could be very solid about stringent inspections to ensure denuclearization compliance.  If the Kim regime does not agree to stringent inspections or agrees and then plays their old tricks against inspectors than President Trump could have his rationale to strike North Korea.  Or maybe President Trump is willing to go along with the facade to get a Nobel Peace Prize like his rival Barack Obama did and then let some other future US president deal with the consequences when Pyongyang ultimately reneges on the deal. Time will tell but the next 1-2 years should continue to be interesting times on the peninsula as everyone involved continues to play their role in this great facade.

This photo captured from North Korea’s Central TV on April 26, 2018, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) talking with Chinese Ambassador to Pyongyang Li Jinjun while seeing off a special train carrying the bodies of Chinese killed in a deadly bus crash and those wounded at a station in Pyongyang the previous day. The April 22 accident left 32 Chinese tourists dead and two seriously injured. Four North Koreans also died.  (Yonhap)