Trump-Kim Summit 2.0: Turning Point, Break Point, or Missed Opportunity?
Xinran Wang

On Tuesday, March 5, DEAN hosted Dr. Scott A. Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), to provide his insights on the second meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. The talk was titled, “Trump-Kim Summit 2.0: Turning Point, Break Point, or Missed Opportunity?”

Dr. Snyder identified the second Trump-Kim summit, which took place five days before the event, as the “milestone moment” for the “longest running hustle relationship between US and foreign country” after 17 years. It resulted from the nuclear threat of North Korea and Kim Jong-un’s search for normalization of international relations. Examining the complicated relations and digging into the causes, Snyder discussed the global, regional, and inner-peninsula significance of North Korea and its nuclear programs.

Then, he illustrated different parties’ roles and interests in the historical summit. First, in terms of US interests in Northeast Asia, Washington fears nuclear proliferation and treats the Korean peninsula as the lynchpin for US regional strategy, performing as the leverage in US-China relations. From the North Korean perspective, Kim could gain both economic benefits and diplomatic status from the talks. During the summit, he sought the removal of US sanctions that have been blocking North Korean economic development, as well as the removal of US troops and extended security guarantee in the Korean peninsula. Taken a step further, North Korea desires unification of the peninsula led by the North. In the international arena, after the shift of power relations in the peninsular around 1970s, North Korea has been eager to regain power and international acceptance. From as early as 1976, after North Korea opened up with China, it has always wanted to reach out to the US in order gain strategic significance in Sino-DPRK-US triangle, a role similar to China in US-Soviet Union decades before.

Besides two key parties, South Korea and China have also played significant roles in the negotiation process. Under Moon Jae-in’s government, South Korea plays a facilitating and mediating role between Pyongyang and Washington, accelerating the inter-Korean peace process and North Korea’s denuclearization. For example, the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics was an opportunity that South Korea utilized to shape the US-DPRK trajectory, creating space for peace development and further opening up direct dialogue between the two leaders. China’s objectives, on the other hand, has been stability first, then peace and development. The US-DPRK relation directly influences the national security interests of both China and Japan.
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Dr. Snyder considers the 2018 Singapore summit (with the four-point agreement) and the recent Hanoi summit to have more symbolic significance rather than practical development. In the Hanoi summit, Kim wanted to consolidate his interests first before going to denuclearization, while the Trump administration wanted to “see the whole pie” before lifting sanctions. Eventually, can US convince North Korea to choose between economic development and nuclear development? Will US-DPRK relationship survive from political transition? These are questions that still need time to answer.