INTERVIEW US should normalize relations with North Korea: Bruce Cumings

Bruce Cumings speaks with The Korea Times and KBS World during a joint interview held at the broadcaster in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, March 29. Korea Times photo by Jung Da-min

By Jung Da-min

The only way for the United States to steer North Korea in a better direction is to embrace it, giving it a chance to join the world economy, according to Bruce Cumings, a history professor at the University of Chicago.

In a joint interview with The Korea Times and KBS World Radio in Seoul, March 29, the renowned Korea expert said the U.S. should normalize relations with North Korea and declare an end to the Korean War as early as possible. Cumings was visiting Seoul as one of the keynote speakers at a forum commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1919 March 1 Independence Movement.

“Particularly, it needs to take economic measures to bring North Korea into the world economy, so they can be captured by the same gravity that China and Vietnam have been captured by,” Cumings said. “That's the only way North Korea will ever change.”

Cumings said South Korea could facilitate peace talks with North Korea by inviting its leader Kim Jong-un to Seoul.

“For Kim, who allegedly has switched from his military first and nuclear policies to one-end to build up the North Korean economy, it'd be good for him to get a good look at Seoul and immense development here,” he said. “North Korea, if it wants to get off the mark economically and develop, needs every kind of help from South Korea.”

Cumings also shared his critical views about security advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump.

He said Trump has made a great progress in the denuclearization talks with North Korea, but may do a better job without hardliners. He said Trump could have made an “interim” deal regarding denuclearization at the last summit with North Korean leader Kim in Hanoi without the hardliners.

“I think Trump needs to sort out his advisers, particularly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton,” Cumings said. “Trump needs to lead (the denuclearization talks) and there's no reason why he couldn't have made that deal in Hanoi as an interim deal. It wasn't a bad deal really.”

Cumings said this is a very dangerous situation as Bolton and Pompeo have been on record, especially Bolton for more than 20 years, saying the real answer to the North Korean problem is to get rid of the North Korean regime.

“This does not help the U.S. dealing with the North Korean leadership. I don't see how Trump can go forward with the third summit or some kind of deal with North Korea until he gets his advisers on board.”

He said many people have been waiting to overthrow North Korea or for the country to collapse for his entire lifetime and it hasn't happened, showing it is not the way to deal with the country.

“The way to change North Korea in a better direction is to bring it out of its isolation,” he said.

Despite the failure of the Hanoi summit, Cumings said he still gives Trump credit for what he has achieved since he was elected as president.

“It's very important that North Korea quit testing in November 2017, right at the point where they had shown that they had nuclear weapons and an intercontinental ballistic missile,” he said.

He said Trump's innocent approach to North Korea is different from what he had witnessed with past administrations of the U.S. and South Korea and far from the Washington intellectuals.

“Most happened in the last 75 years has been very predictable, because of the confrontation between North and South and sometimes it seems nothing ever changes. You get the progress with Kim Dae-jung and Clinton, you get regress with Bush and Lee Myung-bak and so on,” he said.

“Trump is very different in that he looks at Korea with innocent eyes. There's nothing innocent about Trump but he doesn't really know about history but wants to make an impact and he doesn't like the foreign policy establishment and what it thinks about Korea.”