Tag: North Korea

It looks like people are starting to realize that President Trump has been following John Bolton’s advice all along in regards to North Korea:

First, Trump could simply choose to shrug, continue to tweet that the North Korean threat has evaporated, and direct Pompeo to secure concessions in any way possible. This would be a likely path to appeasing Pyongyang, resulting in the United States giving up valuable leverage for virtually cosmetic North Korean concessions like the reversible dismantlement of tunnel entrances at the Punggye-ri nuclear site. North Korea has plenty of old and now out-of-use nuclear and missile sites it could happily detonate before the international press.

Second, Trump could simply allow the North Korea process that began on June 12 to quietly collapse and put the issue of its nuclear program and disarmament on ice—call it a return to “strategic patience.”

The problem here is that the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign is all but dead after the Singapore summit and it’s more likely than not that China, along with Russia, will ease up on the implementation of existing sanctions and perhaps even call for a removal of United Nations sanctions applied in 2017 on North Korean exports.

In this scenario, the U.S. loses interest and North Korea benefits economically while continuing to build out its nuclear program without constraints. This would be the equivalent of a continuation of the muddling-through approach that three consecutive U.S. administrations found themselves resigned to with North Korea, updated for the era of a considerably more capable North Korea.

Third, Trump could find himself left with nothing but the literal nuclear option. Feeling spurned and humiliated by Kim, Trump may find that the only way to move forward is to let John Bolton’s March 2017 prophecy come true.

Weeks before entering the White House as Trump’s advisor on national security affairs, Bolton, as a private citizen, had remarked on Trump’s acceptance of Kim’s invitation that “[The purpose of this process is to] foreshorten the amount of time that we’re going to waste in negotiations that will never produce the result we want, which is Kim giving up his nuclear program.”

Gone would be the days of “all options” being on the table. Trump might conclude then that the only path to denuclearization is an all-out military strike on North Korea—a trigger to a nuclear war that would engulf Northeast Asia in tremendous destruction and likely parts of the U.S. homeland, given North Korea’s intercontinental-range ballistic missile capability.

None of these scenarios are appealing, though the third is quite clearly the worst. Trump’s Monday tweet offers the clearest glimpse of why diplomacy-for-diplomacy’s-sake with North Korea can be dangerous—even if it pulled us back from the brink of “fire and fury.”  [Daily Beast]

You can read more at the link, but I have been saying this for quite sometime that I think the Trump administration is simply giving the Kim regime one last chance to rejoin the world community and denuclearize.  It almost seems like they are checking every box to say they have tried every peaceful means to get them to denuclearize.  If the Kim regime does not take advantage of this chance I think other options will be seriously considered and appeasement which this article suggests will not be one of those options.

This is NK’s propaganda narrative, so why are we subscribing to it? Since the Korean War, the only side engaged in a truly *hostile policy* has been NK. NK fears its own people more than it does the US. Its history of internal repression and external belligerence proves this. https://t.co/YszRyysMkO

— Edward Oh (@EdwardHBOh) July 9, 2018

Just like when people emphasize North Korea following the China model, they can’t follow the Vietnam model either because neither country had to maintain a personality cult like the Kim regime does:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered North Korean leader Kim Jong-un the Vietnamese model of normalization of bilateral relations with Washington and economic prosperity, speaking in Hanoi on Sunday on the heels of a two-day trip to Pyongyang.

“In light of the once-unimaginable prosperity and partnership we have with Vietnam today, I have a message for [North Korean] Chairman Kim Jong-un,” said Pompeo at a business event at the Sofitel Metropole Hotel in Hanoi. “[U.S. President Donald] Trump believes your country can replicate this path. It’s yours if you’ll seize the moment … it can be your miracle in North Korea as well.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans have now said more about why they are unhappy about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang, they want US troops removed from the peninsula before they do anything:

The next line of the more than 1,200-word statement may have captured the central complaint: “The U.S. side never mentioned the issue of establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, which is essential for defusing tension and preventing a war,” an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman said.

The statement shows that Kim is willing to test Trump’s patience and not bargain away his arsenal without sufficient security guarantees. The regime’s belief that the weapons are needed to deter a U.S. attack dates back nearly 70 years to the still-unresolved Korean War, and will take more than a handshake to dispel.  (…….)

That’s why the vague 1-1/2 page agreement Kim signed with Trump on June 12 called for establishing a new relationship and a “lasting and stable peace regime.” The pledge to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” was listed third.

Practically, assuaging Kim’s security fears could require risky choices for the U.S. and its North Asian allies, such as rolling back America’s nuclear umbrella or pulling back its troops in South Korea. The desire for a broader security realignment explains why Kim agreed to “denuclearization” and not disarmament.

Trump has already faced criticism for being too quick to make security concessions to Kim, including his unilateral suspension of military exercises with South Korea. The North Korean statement indicated such gestures hadn’t gone far enough, saying the U.S. moves were “highly reversible” and left its military force intact “without scraping even a rifle.”  [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link, but I am sure the Kim regime cares little about the irony of them complaining about “highly reversible” actions taken by the Trump administration when they have done the same thing.  There is not one thing the Kim regime has done as part of the ongoing nuclear negotiations that cannot be easily reversed if so desired.

With that said remember the North’s nuclear weapons has nothing to do with security guarantees as discussed in the article; the North’s conventional weapons have kept the US and South Korea in check for decades because of the threat to Seoul.  That is why you will not see the North Koreans push their artillery away from the DMZ despite ROK requests to do so.

The North’s nuclear weapons are linked to threatening the United States to get the US president to sign a peace treaty, withdraw troops, and remove the nuclear umbrella over South Korea.   Once this is done, then the next phase of establishing the peace regime can occur which is essentially a confederation of North and South Korea on North Korean terms.

North Korea likely had no plans of giving up their nukes, but were willing to pretend for a while to string the US along.  However, the sharp rebuke they gave this weekend to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit may be linked to the China trade issue:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested on Sunday that China may have pressured North Korea to take a harder line against U.S. negotiators during a recent visit to the isolated country by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“I see China’s hands all over this,” Graham told “Fox News Sunday,” citing an ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China as Beijing’s possible motivation. “We’re in a fight with China.”

Graham’s comments came a day after the North Korean foreign ministry released a lengthy statement, condemning U.S. negotiators’ “gangster-like demand for denuclearization.” [The Hill]

You can read more at the link, but if China continues to violate sanctions to support the Kim regime I wonder if at some point the Trump administration will consider sanctions on China as well.

Media cliches are a trove of unintentional insight into the running 20-year failure of the engagement hypothesis.
See also, "rare glimpse." https://t.co/khZ8LYTiVJ

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) July 8, 2018

This was an encouraging response from Secretary of State Pompeo to North Korean claims of “gangster demands”:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday his country is making fair demands on North Korea in denuclearization talks, refuting its strongly worded criticism following his latest trip to Pyongyang.

The North openly expressed disappointment over what he put forward during a hourslong bargaining with Kim Yong-chol, a top North Korean official, on Thursday and Friday.

Pompeo presented a “unilateral and gangster-like” demand for “complete, verifiable and irreversible” denuclearization (CVID), the North’s foreign ministry said in a statement issued after his departure.

“If those requests were ‘gangster-like’ then the world is a gangster, because there was a unanimous decision at the U.N. Security Council about what needs to be achieved,” the secretary said in the first U.S. response to the North’s assertion that added to skepticism over future negotiations.

He was speaking at a joint press conference with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts — Kang Kyung-wha and Taro Kono — in Tokyo.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the irony of this is that North Korea is often called the “Sopranos State” and they are ones accusing the US of gangster demands.

Probably the most positive sign in the article is that Pompeo says the sanctions will remain in place:

“Sanctions will remain in place until final, fully verified denuclearization,” Pompeo stressed. “While we are encouraged by the progress of these talks, progress alone does not justify the relaxation of the existing sanctions regime.”

The denuclearization of Korea covers not just nuclear bombs but also missiles, he said, adding North Korean officials also understand that.

On the trustworthiness issue, he said, “There will be a verification connected to the complete denuclearization.”

Like I have always said if the US drops sanctions for little to nothing in return then hit the panic button.  People just need to be patient and let what I think is Kim’s final chance to rejoin the world community to play out.

The Kim regime’s favorite South Korean broadcaster JTBC, that used fake news to help bring down former ROK President Park Geun-hye, is now looking to open a Pyongyang bureau office:

Eight officials of South Korean TV station JTBC will visit North Korea’s capital Pyongyang next week to discuss inter-Korean exchange in the field of media and the opening of the broadcaster’s bureau there.

It will become the first case of inter-Korean cooperation in media since inter-Korean military tension subsided early this year.

Seoul’s unification ministry approved their visit to the North late Friday. The ministry’s approval is a must for South Korean citizens to visit the North since the two Koreas are technically still at war with each other because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The ministry said the JTBC delegation, headed by its newsroom managing director Kwon Suk-chun, will visit the North from July 9 to 12, during which time they will meet with North Korean broadcasters and officials from the National Reconciliation Council, which invited the delegation to the North.

The purpose of the visit is to discuss “inter-Korean exchange in the field of media and JTBC’s opening of a Pyongyang bureau,” said the ministry in a message sent to reporters. It didn’t give further details.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Chosun Ilbo: Mike Pompeo is literally bringing a copy of Elton John's "Rocket Man" record to Kim Jong Un https://t.co/OY8eIGNudP

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) July 6, 2018

The North Koreans are up to their old tricks:

North Korea says high-level talks with a U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were “regrettable” and has accused Washington of trying to unilaterally pressure the country into abandoning its nukes.

The statement by an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman on Saturday came hours after Pompeo concluded two days of talks with North Korean officials led by Kim Yong Chol.

The statement says that the United States betrayed the spirit of last month’s summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by making unilateral demands on “CVID,” or the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.

It says the outcome of the follow-up talks was “very concerning” because it has led to a “dangerous phase that might rattle our willingness for denuclearization that had been firm.” [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but my best guess on what is going on is that North Korea wants some of the sanctions dropped for the little to nothing they have done to denuclearize.  This is their standard playbook from past negotiations.

The other thing that is in their playbook is using the remains of US servicemembers killed during the Korean War as bargaining chips.   When the return of 200 war remains was announced I was wondering what the cost would be?  Now we know they were just bargaining chips by the Kim regime to get sanctions dropped.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has wrapped up two days of talks with senior North Korean officials without meeting Kim Jong Un but with commitments for new discussions on denuclearization and the repatriation of the remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War.

The Kim regime is only committing to further discussions on the return of the remains which proves they are simply bargaining chips to get what the Kim regime wants which is some of the sanctions dropped.  South Korean President Moon is ready to send the Kim regime cash and aid, but the sanctions are preventing him from doing so.

What will be important to watch now is if the Trump administration flinches and allows some of the sanctions to be dropped to keep the negotiations going.  If they do then truly nothing has changed, the Trump administration is just the latest government to be fooled by the Kim regime’s false promises to denuclearize.