Can Trump 'pass up' Xi to work with Kim?

By Lee Seong-hyon

This week marks 25 years since former U.S. President Jimmy Carter negotiated a deal with North Korea in which Pyongyang committed to freezing its burgeoning nuclear weapons program and engage in high-level negotiations with Washington. The deal didn't last because then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung met an abrupt death only a month later.

Twenty-five years later, Kim Jong-un, the grandson of the North's leader, met with a U.S. president in Singapore this week. This time, with a sitting U.S. president, Donald Trump ― the first time in history. A few things are also different now than then. North Korea now has a doable nuclear arsenal. There is also a formidable third-party stakeholder ― China.

Among the critical post-summit tasks for Trump would be to decide on how much of a role, if any, he would want to give to Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the ongoing North Korean nuclear issue. In other words, can the U.S. solve the North Korean problem without enlisting China's help?

Xi already met Kim twice in the weeks leading up to the Singapore summit. If the nature of the first Xi-Kim meeting was about "restoration of relations" between North Korea and China, their second meeting in the Chinese port city of Dalian was an occasion in which Xi reportedly gave Kim protective "insurance." Namely, if the Trump-Kim meetup falls apart, thou shalt not worry, because Xi will stand by Kim. After all, the couple recently reaffirmed their relationship as being special, “the one and only in the world.”

Against this backdrop, Trump publicly thought out loud whether Xi may be behind Kim's defiant attitude in the negotiation process in the prelude to the summit. Trump pointed out that North Korea's change of attitude surfaced right after the Xi-Kim meeting in Dalian.

From a bigger scheme, Trump's declaration in March that he would meet with Kim proved to be the starting point of so-called “China passing” ― the idea that China might be sidelined or “passed over” on issues related to North Korea. Trump in the past repeatedly said North Korea is China's problem to fix. As if all the roads lead to Rome, the logic went, the North Korean nuclear issue has to be solved through China.

Now, however, Trump is tantamount to signaling publicly that he no longer needs China to solve the North Korean issue and he, as a self-styled dealmaker, can make direct deals with Kim. In that case, China's stake, which was historically the largest foreign variable in geopolitics surrounding the Korean Peninsula, will weaken.

There's something psychological about Trump's maneuvers too. Namely, it conjures up the deep-seated insecurity in the Chinese strategic community that Trump might “seduce” Kim away from Xi's socialist harem and bring Kim closer to Washington's turf, showering Kim with capitalist elements and possibly even erecting a Trump Tower in Pyongyang too.

That's why there is fear in Beijing that Trump and Kim might hit it off too well, even if China also publicly welcomed the meeting. There is suspicion in China that Trump's hidden strategic goal is to normalize relations with North Korea, so as to check China.

In this time of uncertainty, the focus of Chinese strategy also displays a subtle shift from North Korea's denuclearization to securing China's geopolitical influence over North Korea. This temporary nuanced tactical adjustment cannot be ruled out to be transformed into a strategic shift in the process of intensifying competition and rivalry between Washington and Beijing.

There will be signs to watch. For instance, China may decouple from its commitment to economic sanctions currently put in place on North Korea. China, which has just reclaimed its long estranged relationship with North Korea, is unlikely to sacrifice its relationship with North Korea again.

In another case, if the United States returns to the "maximum pressure" campaign or even mounts military attacks on North Korea in the future, China believes the Trump administration cannot afford to attack North Korea if China adamantly opposes it.

In the heyday of Washington's “bloody nose” debate last year, China was remarkably reticent about its “options” regarding what it would do in case there is contingency in North Korea. Yet, that shouldn't automatically constitute a singular interpretation that China would “acquiesce" to the U.S. kinetic moves against North Korea. China, after all, sent in the one-million strong People's Liberation Army to the Korean War, going against American expectations.

Lee Seong-hyon (sunnybbsfs@gmail.com), Ph.D., is director of Department of Unification Strategy at the Sejong Institute.