North Korea will gain from diplomatic momentum
Kim Jong-un has just visited China for the fourth time in ten months, and has other summits in the offing
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong-chol are due to meet later this week to discuss a second meeting between their countries' leaders. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited China during January 7-10. He spent his 35th birthday in Beijing and met Chinese President Xi Jinping for the fourth time in ten months. Meanwhile, Pompeo implied on January 11 that sanctions on North Korea could be eased, with a focus on removing its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) threat to the United States rather than full denuclearisation.
What next
If Washington lets some UN sanctions be eased, inter-Korean economic ties (eg, transport links) can progress. A second year of busy summitry will widen Kim’s circle of interlocutors to include Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and perhaps even Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Backed by Beijing and Moscow, and with Seoul supportive too, Kim is well placed to reap political and economic benefits while making minimal concessions on nuclear weapons.
Subsidiary Impacts
- Xi might make an overdue return visit to Pyongyang in April, perhaps before Kim’s promised first visit to Seoul.
- Other Asian leaders may visit Pyongyang too, conferring legitimacy on Kim.
- South Korea may once again challenge China for influence in North Korea.
Analysis
As in early 2018, Kim has once again seized the initiative. Amid speculation when and where he will meet Trump, and disappointment in Seoul that he did not come south in 2018, Kim's visit to Beijing sends clear signals.
Prioritising China reassures Xi, while reminding Trump and Moon that Kim has choices
As with his first three visits to China in as many months last year, ahead of his meetings with Moon and Trump (and again after the latter), this month's visit means wider summitry is in the offing.
On December 30, Kim wrote to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, whom he also met three times in 2018, that he hopes for frequent talks in 2019.
Kim will also meet Putin, possibly in Vladivostok.
First, however, Kim's much-touted second summit with US President Donald Trump is expected in mid-February, with Vietnam seen as the probable venue.
Japan's Abe said on January 11 he thinks that he too "will have to face Kim", and that diplomatic contacts are underway. Abe may well be kept waiting, but have his chance in 2020.
Kim's fourth visit to China leaves him strongly placed for upcoming summits with Trump, Moon, probably Putin and possibly Abe
The warning in Kim's New Year speech that North Korea might seek a "new path", unless sanctions are eased, is less a threat that nuclear and missile testing could resume -- possible, but unlikely while diplomacy is paying dividends -- than a hint that support from old friends means Pyongyang is in no desperate need or hurry to forge ties with its enemies.
Little love lost
China-North Korean realities are more complex and transactional than their surface warmth. In his first six years (2012-17) as leader, Kim Jong-un antagonised China on several fronts:
- He failed to visit. Xi was the first Chinese leader to host a South Korean president (Park Geun-hye, in 2013) before holding a summit with the North. Xi and Park met six times.
- Kim had his uncle Jang Song-thaek killed in 2013, on charges including selling out to China (which was all but named). Jang had handled economic relations with Beijing and was trusted there.
- Kim accelerated nuclear weapons testing in 2016-17. This, and the tensions it created, alarmed and angered China into more vigorously enforcing UN sanctions (themselves sharply tightened in 2017).
Trade plummets, deficit balloons
Chinese customs data published yesterday show that in 2018 bilateral trade fell by over half (52.4%) from 2017. China's imports plunged 88% to 1.42 billion renminbi (210 million dollars), while exports fell by one-third to 14.7 billion renminbi.
North Korea's resulting huge trade deficit -- the norm until recent years -- raises questions as to how it is financed, with suspicions that unrecorded Chinese aid is keeping the regime afloat.
Kim's turn to diplomacy in 2018 was a relief for Xi. In a changing geopolitical environment, not least Trump's trade war, Kim's suspension of nuclear tests sufficed for China to resume diplomatic and economic support while still calling for 'denuclearisation of the peninsula'.
This wording (which is also Pyongyang's) means that Washington must take action too. That could ultimately mean withdrawing the 28,500 US troops based in South Korea, a goal clearly in Beijing's interests.
Since last June, China has called for sanctions relief for North Korea, echoed by Russia. While nonetheless claiming to enforce sanctions, evidence suggests some easing in practice. China accounts for over 90% of North Korean trade, so this is crucial for the regime's survival. Beijing has also increased business and economic contacts in recent months, encouraged by Kim's prioritisation of economic development and de facto embrace of some market reforms -- albeit quietly and falling far short of those China embarked on 40 years ago.
Trump may retreat
In Beijing's view, shared by Moon (but not by South Korean conservatives), economic engagement is the best way to defang Pyongyang. That view may now be empirically tested.
In a television interview on January 11, Pompeo ducked several chances to reiterate the line that full denuclearisation must precede any sanctions relief. Two days earlier, Washington eased restrictions on humanitarian aid to North Korea. Trump is increasingly expected to offer wider relief.
That would please Moon, whose wishes to modernise North Korea's transport infrastructure and pursue other joint ventures currently blocked by sanctions. Nationalist altruism aside, this would allow South Korean firms to break China's near-monopoly on business in North Korea. The two competed until 2010, when then-President Lee Myung-bak banned most trade with and investment in North Korea in retaliation for the North's sinking of a South Korean corvette.
Seoul is less keen on a second rumoured change of tack: if Washington settles for concessions specifically on removing the ICBM threat to the United States, rather than full denuclearisation. That said, in September the two Koreas signed their own military accord (see NORTH KOREA: Peace process may hit sanctions roadblock - September 21, 2018). This is largely symbolic so far, but could allow direct bilateral talks towards meaningful disarmament.
South Koreans fear any weakening in the US commitment to defend them, especially given growing mistrust of China. A related worry is Trump's hard line on cost-sharing for US forces in South Korea. The existing accord expired at end-2018; talks on a new one are stalled.
Kim cleans up
If Washington gives ground on those two issues, many parties will be satisfied.
Beleaguered at home, Trump can claim he has removed a major threat to US security (see UNITED STATES: Shutdown effects will deepen - January 9, 2019).
Inter-Korean projects will move forward. Fresh momentum in the peace process may help Moon's poll ratings, which have been sliding due to economic concerns.
China will step up contacts and investment to reinforce its dominant role in North Korea.
Inflows from China and South Korea will help North Korea's economy, boosting Kim's already strong position. An adept balancer, he may have China and South Korea -- maybe also Russia and even Japan -- competing to modernise North Korea's ageing transport, energy, telecoms and other infrastructure. Conversely, pressure to denuclearise, already diminished, could weaken further, provided Kim's nuclear test moratorium and smile diplomacy continue.
