Politics is about performance; performance, in the narrowest sense, refers to political actors’ ability to initiate, manage and execute major structural and institutional changes.
This is definitely true for US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s series of diplomatic maneuvers that led to the historic summit in Singapore on Tuesday.
Although there has been much skepticism over North Korea’s willingness to completely surrender its nuclear arsenal, three circumstantial factors paved the way for the US rapprochement with the North.
First, the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula during the summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on April 27 provided a road map to ending the decades-long Korean War and normalizing US-North Korea relations.
Politically, the Korean War turned Northeast Asia into one of the most volatile regions in the world. During the fighting, the US destroyed North Korea with massive firebombing campaigns. When the conflict ended in 1953, there was no winner or loser.
Returning to the 38th parallel where the battle began, Washington and Pyongyang in July 1953 signed only an armistice to cease military operations. The countries are technically at war and this hostility has complicated geopolitics on the peninsula ever since.
During the Cold War, a peace treaty with North Korea was not perceived as being in the US interest, because that would make it difficult for the US to justify its ongoing military presence on the peninsula.
Over the past few months, the Trump administration has abandoned the US’ longstanding hostility toward Pyongyang, and this creates a window of opportunity to pursue regional peace and stability.
A second major development is that the US has recognized North Korea as a legitimate nation-state. One reason for Washington’s refusal to negotiate with Pyongyang in the past was its failure to understand the North Korean mode of government.
Former US president George W. Bush coined the phrase “axis of evil” to demonize North Korea, Iran and Iraq as threats to global security. Reluctant to negotiate with Pyongyang, Washington predicted a regime collapse from within. However, this prediction never materialized.
Despite a weak economy and widespread starvation in the 1990s, North Korea defied Western forecasts of its imminent demise. Neither a Soviet client state nor a product of revolutionary nationalism like China, Cuba and Vietnam, North Korea achieved an intense indigenization of Stalinism.
What distinguishes North Korea from other socialist regimes is the consolidation of the Kim dynasty. It is the only communist state where succession has taken place, with founder Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) handing over power to his son Kim Jong-il (1941–2011), who then transferred rule to Kim Jong-un upon his death.
Regime survival is always of key significance for North Korea and can only be achieved through a peace treaty with the US. Any other arrangement is meaningless. Without a peace treaty, the US keeps the option of attacking North Korea.
The Trump administration has shown a great deal of pragmatism by bringing Kim Jong-un to the negotiation table.
The third factor is the resilience of the North’s ideology of juche (asserting one’s identity and self-reliance). As a political discourse, juche emphasizes territorial independence, economic self-sufficiency and collective defense against outside threats.
Under Soviet and Chinese pressure in the mid-1950s, Kim II-sung introduced the concept of juche in 1955. Permeating all levels of society, the ideology motivated the entire population to sacrifice for state-building and nullified US pressure to force a regime collapse.
For decades, Pyongyang has demanded that Washington withdraw its military from the peninsula and sign a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, but the US dismissed the North’s demands. Against this backdrop, North Korea acquired nuclear technology from Pakistani scientists in the 1990s.
By 2001, when Bush took office, the North had the scientific knowledge and skills to produce nuclear weapons. For the US, the objective of diplomatic engagement was to persuade Pyongyang to slow down, if not dismantle, its nuclear weapons programs.
By comparison, China has shown a great deal of hesitation toward the Trump-Kim summit. China strives to replace the Cold War structure with a new multilateral order against the US.
China’s involvement in the previous rounds of six-nation nuclear talks was a defense against any potential US attacks on the North and a response to the Sino-American rivalry over Taiwan.
It can be anticipated that any settlement with North Korea will inevitably lead to a clarification of the US policy on Taiwan.
The latest efforts by Trump and Kim to seek common ground on the nuclear issue signaled a qualitative change in the bilateral relationship. The summit in Singapore suggests that the US publicly acknowledges North Korea as an equal in substantive negotiations.
To Kim Jong-un, political survival and power consolidation dictate his decision to reduce tensions with the US. Since proclaiming itself a nuclear state, North Korea appears to be operating in a larger international arena.
Dissatisfied with its status as a client of the US, South Korea has reached out to the North directly. This reconciliatory sentiment manifested itself in the Moon-Kim summit in Panmunjom in April.
Key for the US is how to contain a nuclear North Korea while preserving its defense alliances with South Korea and Japan.
In these webs of geopolitical encounters, North Korea has taken advantage of Sino-US rivalries, playing one against the other to empower itself.
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is a professor of history at Pace University in New York City.
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