US-N Korea summit: How Kim went from 'little rocket man' to 'we're in love'

Trump's personal engagement with Kim has been praised as a bold diplomatic bid to break a decadeslong cycle of threats and failed diplomacy that has left the US mired in an unresolved conflict

When President Trump sits down this week for a second summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, he will face a young dictator who has grown in outward confidence as a negotiator since their last meeting.

That could make it tougher to convince Kim to give up his nuclear weapons, longtime observers of the secretive leader say.

Where Kim offered concessions before the first summit, he has tried to set conditions for this second meeting on Wednesday and Thursday in Hanoi. In the New Year’s speech where he offered to meet again, Kim also warned that if the US “persists in imposing sanctions” he would take a “new path”—a phrase that could mean anything from ending dialogue to more missile tests, observers say.

Crowds of onlookers gathered in the Vietnamese capital on Tuesday hoping for a glimpse of Kim as he arrived in the city after a 2½-day journey by train and road from Pyongyang. Security officials closed roads in the downtown area near where Kim and his delegation are staying.

A near recluse during his first years in power, Kim has continued the diplomatic outreach he began around the first summit, meeting the leaders of China and South Korea and exchanging letters with Trump.

He has also continued to process nuclear bomb material, reports show, suggesting he could keep making weapons if talks fail.

Flaunting the notion that US-led sanctions are crimping Kim’s style, his propaganda agency published video in recent days of a Mercedes Maybach S 600 luxury limo tooling around Pyongyang—newly acquired, according to NK News, a site that monitors North Korea.

“Kim Jong Un is showing confidence that he believes he can control events,” said Jung H. Pak, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and former Central Intelligence Agency senior analyst on North Korea.

“The perception that he is in a position of strength doesn’t bode well for dialogue,” she said.

One negotiating tactic adopted by Kim is to deal directly with Trump while keeping Trump’s staff at bay, said Wi Sung-lac, a South Korean envoy to previous talks with North Korea.

For example, North Korea rebuffed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a follow-up meeting after the first summit, accusing him of taking a “gangster like” attitude, and a later meeting in New York was canceled. Staff-level engagement ramped up again this year amid planning for a second Trump-Kim summit.

Keeping talks on a leader-to-leader level allows Kim to retain the benefits of meeting Trump, such as burnishing his reputation, while avoiding staff-level discussions on the practicalities of removing his weapons.

While US officials take credit for a reduction of tensions including a halt in Korean missile tests, they concede Kim made no progress toward denuclearisation since the last summit.

“Kim Jong Un has concluded that Trump is a good guy to talk to, while conversations at a lower level are a waste of time,” said Wi.

Another Kim strategy can be termed “self-directed denuclearization,” said Kim Sung-han, a former South Korean vice minister of Foreign Affairs. In this case, Kim offers to dismantle nuclear facilities of his choosing, often of unclear value, such as the Punggye-ri test site destroyed in 2018. The symbolic acts give the appearance of progress while avoiding a comprehensive denuclearization framework, handing over a nuclear inventory or allowing inspections.

Kim’s emergence as a calculating negotiator is the latest turn for the 30-something ruler who came to power in the world’s most secretive state after his father’s death in 2011.

He killed family members to consolidate power and sped up the nuclear weapons program. In 2017, he engaged Trump in a harrowing nuclear standoff that led to their first summit, in Singapore last June.

For the young leader, the talks mark a crucial chance to recalibrate relations with the US and help ensure the long-term survival of the regime founded by his grandfather. Kim has said a “state nuclear force” completed in 2017 puts North Korea on equal footing with the US, and defines denuclearization to include the elimination of the US threat as well.

Kim has called for lifting sanctions as well as relationship-improving measures, such as a framework to formally end the Korean War.

Pompeo said recently that sanctions would remain in force until the threat of nuclear attack was substantially reduced. That marked a shift from the previous US position of demanding total denuclearization before any sanctions relief.

Trump has sought to entice Kim to drop his arms by holding out the possibility of economic prosperity through investment. The bet is that Kim, who lived in Switzerland as boy, isn’t a tyrant by choice and, if given the chance, might chart a new path for his country.

“He may surprise some but he won’t surprise me, because I have gotten to know him & fully understand how capable he is,” Trump tweeted on Feb. 8.

Supporters have praised Trump’s personal engagement as a bold diplomatic bid to break a decadeslong cycle of threats, broken promises and failed diplomacy that has left the US mired in an unresolved conflict for decades. Trump is the first sitting US president to meet a North Korean leader.

Skeptics say that the Trump administration is being naive about Kim, who ordered the execution of his uncle, the assassination of his half-brother and is keeping some 100,000 political prisoners locked up in harsh gulags.

They say Kim has no intention of giving up weapons he risked annihilation to build, and is instead using the summits to build global acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear state. In his best-case scenario, he will wriggle out of sanctions and get other concessions. In his worst case, he will buy more time to perfect his intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

“Kim sees no downside to the talks. He will just show up and see what he can get,” said Van Jackson, an Obama administration official and author of a book on North Korea.

Kim came out of the first summit better than he went in. Before, Trump was calling him “little rocket man.” After, Kim emerged with Trump saying he had a “great personality.” More recently, Trump said “we fell in love.”

Also, Kim succeeded in getting the US to accept a slower-paced approach to denuclearization, a shift from the do-it-now approach the White House pushed last year.

Owing to North Korea’s isolation and secrecy, Kim knows more about Trump than the other way around, another potential negotiating advantage. For example, Kim knows Trump is describing his dealings with North Korea as a foreign-policy success ahead of a contentious re-election campaign.

On the other hand, North Korea is so secretive that even Kim’s age is debated.

“Politically Trump is facing a tough domestic situation and Kim Jong Un knows that, and will try to take advantage of that,” said Kim Sung-han, the former South Korean vice minister.

Despite the obstacles, even some North Korea watchers who are skeptical of Trump’s handling support his willingness to try direct engagement with Kim.

“I don’t agree with my colleagues when they say, ‘Oh, no you can’t meet with Kim Jong Un, it will give him too much credibility,’ ” said David Kang, who runs the Institute for Korean Studies at the University of Southern California. “In my view the more you talk to the North Koreans the better.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal