N. Korea's Kim could seek Trump summit after US midterms: expert

Victor Cha testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, D.C., Apr. 27, 2017. Courtesy of CSIS

WASHINGTON — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could seek renewed summitry with U.S. President Donald Trump, potentially after the U.S. midterm elections this fall, if Pyongyang adopts a "revisionist" approach to help cement its status as a nuclear-armed state, an expert said Thursday.

Victor Cha, president of the geopolitics and foreign policy department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), laid out a scenario for renewed Trump-Kim summitry in an analysis posted on the CSIS website.

The analysis came amid lingering speculation that despite Trump's openness to talks with Kim, Pyongyang might have little interest in reengaging with Washington given that it has deepened economic, diplomatic and military cooperation with Moscow, and reinforced ties with Beijing.

"The main driver relates to the extent to which Kim Jong-un is revisionist, and not status-quo oriented," Cha said.

"If he is revisionist in his outlook, he would look to capitalize on any available opportunity to advance the core goal of cementing his status as a nuclear weapons state," he added.

Cha argued that what is missed in the "conventional" analysis — that Kim might think of another summit with Trump as "unattractive" under the current geopolitical environment — is whether "revisionism," rather than the status quo, drives North Korea's foreign policy mindset.

As an example of such revisionism, the expert pointed to North Korea's decision to deepen cooperation with Russia after the COVID-19 pandemic, contrary to expectations that it would focus on restoring trade with China following years of lockdowns.

If Kim adopts a revisionist stance, he might target a meeting with Trump, possibly after the November midterm elections, to reaffirm the basic tenets of the landmark declaration from their first meeting in Singapore in June 2018, Cha said.

The Singapore declaration included Pyongyang's commitment to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and the two countries' agreement to establish "new" bilateral relations and make joint efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the peninsula.

"(Should their summit resume) they would likely avoid detailed denuclearization negotiations, leaving it to their teams to hash out over the next six months," he said.

"Instead, Kim might push the conversation toward peace treaties, stopping U.S. military exercises, and ending the hostile state of relations between the United States and North Korea, appealing to Trump's resume-building for the Nobel Peace Prize."

The expert also raised the possibility that North Korea could seek to reengage with Japan as well if revisionism drives Pyongyang.

But in a revisionist mindset, Pyongyang would not seek to engage South Korea as part of its diplomatic outreach, Cha said.

"In 2024, North Korea swore off any further dialogue with the South. Rather than engage in peaceful coexistence as the Lee (Jae Myung) government has proposed, a revisionist diplomatic strategy that engages Washington and Tokyo while bypassing Seoul would be most attractive," he said.

"It could divide the allies and isolate its southern rival, not unlike what South Korea did to North Korea in the 1990s at the end of the Cold War when it succeeded in establishing relations with Moscow and Beijing."