By Donald Kirk
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That's the fantasy as Donald Trump wraps up his role at the G20 gathering in Osaka and takes off Saturday for Seoul and yet another meeting with President Moon Jae-in. Moon is excited. Maybe this time he can talk Trump into meeting Kim Jong-un for a third time and reaching a viable agreement ― even an "end-of-war" declaration.
The chances of that happening, of course, are not good. Trump would have to stop insisting that Kim agree to giving up his nuclear program and revealing the whereabouts of all his nukes and the facilities for making them. No one in his right mind thinks Kim will go for anything like that.
That's not to say that Trump and Kim won't meet again and maybe do better than they did in Hanoi at the end of February. Trump's walkout was the ultimate happy ending to such a summit. A vacuous agreement on the need for denuclearization, as they signed in Singapore a year ago June 12, would have been more than meaningless. It would have shown the futility of the whole process.
Now Trump and Moon can try to convince each other that maybe next time talks will move closer to reconciliation. Moon is pinning his hopes on step-by-step ― that is, North Korea does something, anything, to show it's de-nuking, and the U.S. gives up the hated sanctions.
It would be so much easier for everyone if Kim would just do the unexpected and meet Trump on the North-South line at Panmunjom on Sunday. They wouldn't have to talk a whole lot. No need to sign another useless statement. All that the world would notice was that they hugged one another, befitting Trump's claim of the depth and warmth of their special relationship.
Korean history is full of surprises, but we would be shocked if Kim made such a gesture. Instead, on Sunday, we may be treated to Trump going to Panmunjom and staring across the line as American presidents have been doing since the Korean War armistice was signed there on July 27, 1953.
Unlike some presidents before him, Trump should not be expected to talk tough as he peers into North Korea. It is possible, in the Panmunjom setting, to speak of reconciliation and dialogue, just as Moon would love to hear ― at least that's better than threatening fire and brimstone, or whatever Trump was saying, at the United Nations in 2017.
This time he is seeing Moon after another summit that may be more meaningful ― his meeting with China's President Xi Jinping at the G20 leaders' gathering. Xi no doubt is talking about his own summit with Kim in Pyongyang.
The gut reaction of many commentators was that Xi wanted to build his ties with Kim by thumbing his nose at Trump for escalating the tariff war between the U.S. and China. What better than to conspire with North Korea against the U.S.?
Evans Revere, once a top U.S. diplomat in Seoul and Washington, takes a more nuanced view. He sees Xi wanting "to continue the effort the Chinese have been making since last year to repair ties with Pyongyang, reassert China's role in the nuclear issue, and remind Pyongyang (and the U.S.) that China has interests that must be respected and a major stake in how issues are handled on the peninsula."
It was "no accident," Revere tells me, that "it has taken 14 years to realize a visit by a Chinese leader to Pyongyang, and even then Xi managed to spend barely 24 hours in Pyongyang."
Xi's visit might be seen as intended to get Kim talking again to the Americans despite Hanoi. He would definitely have applauded Kim's stated desire to focus on the economy rather than nuclear development if he is ever to persuade the U.S. and U.N. to do away with the sanctions imposed after all those nuclear and missile tests.
While saying all that to Trump, he is also asking him to go for step-by-step, just as Kim and Moon are urging. It would be ridiculous for the U.S. to accept such a deal, however, knowing that Kim will never reciprocate by giving up, ever so slowly, his nukes and missiles.
With no solution in sight, Kim coming to embrace Trump at Panmunjom would still make for a great photo-op ― a lot better than signing some empty paper.
Donald Kirk (www.donaldkirk.com) has been writing about the confrontation of forces on the Korean Peninsula for decades.
