Why Kim looks a winner

By Andrew Hammond

With significant uncertainty over the outcome of their Vietnam summit, it is North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, rather than U.S. President Donald Trump, who so far appears the much bigger winner from the engagement process.

To date, Kim has made few concrete concessions to the United States with Trump touting last week as evidence of his diplomatic success with Pyongyang the recent absence of missile and nuclear testing.

At the same time, the U.S. president has called off joint military exercises between U.S. and South Korean forces; exchanged effusive letters of praise with Kim; held out the prospect of an easing of sanctions on Pyongyang if it does "something meaningful" on denuclearization; said that he is in no rush to conclude the negotiation process; and already declared that he will meet again with the North Korean leader after Vietnam.

This underlines how much Kim has already received from Trump in exchange for his ambiguous pledges to "denuclearize." And this in a context too where there is also reported evidence that North Korea is continuing uranium enrichment and has stepped up missile production.

On a personal level, for instance, the young head of state has assumed significantly higher political importance on the international stage, from erstwhile allies and previous foes alike.

Before and after last year's Singapore summit with Trump, other major powers with a stake in the question of the future of the Korean Peninsula, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, began jockeying for position as the region's military and strategic landscapes are potentially recast in what South Korean President Moon Jae-in has said is the real end of the "Cold War," more than a quarter of a century after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

One of the most spectacular features of this, at least to date, has been the remarkable pivot of key powers toward greater engagement with Kim and the Pyongyang regime. All key parties sense significant new political and economic opportunities, and potential risks, opening up under future sanctions relief.

Here, it is no coincidence that Xi has invited Kim for multiple trips to Beijing in 2018 and 2019, his first foreign tours since he assumed power in 2011. Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has met Kim in Pyongyang, has invited the North Korean leader to visit Vladimir Putin in Russia.

The contrast between this feting of Kim, and the situation in 2017 when the Trump team was debating a pre-emptive strike against North Korea is striking. The turnaround in spiraling tensions on the peninsula since then has been as potentially important as it was unexpected by many.

The shifting geopolitical tectonic plates around Korea since the rapprochement have not just positively impacted the North, but also the South too. For instance, Moon is promoting a "New Northern Policy" which, alongside peace talks with Kim, is a key foreign relations policy driver under which his administration is seeking to improve its ties with key Eurasian neighbors.

Last year, for instance, Moon made a landmark trip to Russia, the first by a sitting South Korean president since 1999. His visit underlined that at the same time Kim is being courted by Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, the three have also been clear to consolidate ties with Seoul too.

Last May, Moon met with Trump at the White House, while Xi also saw him that same month with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the first trilateral talks between the three nations since 2015.

In this context of change in the region, and with significant expectations surrounding the Trump-Kim Vietnam event this week, what remains unclear is how big the potential downside risks (as well as opportunities) are in play. This includes the outside possibility of tensions rising again on the peninsula should the U.S.-Koreas peace dialogue break down.

While Trump currently appears keen to have a sustained strategic dialogue with Kim, especially in advance of his potential 2020 re-election campaign, both of these two leaders' personal and political volatility cannot be underestimated.

And if Kim ultimately reneges on any key pledges in the U.S. president's eyes, the political pressure will be on Trump again to ratchet up his position against Pyongyang, despite the warm words of 2018 and early 2019.

In this scenario, Trump would potentially be under political pressure again in the United States on this issue having drawn a political "red line" as president over Pyongyang having nuclear weapons capable of striking the U.S. homeland.

And here he is well aware that missile tests in 2017 showed that Kim is close to developing a nuclear warhead capable of being fitted on to an intercontinental ballistic missile that can strike the U.S. mainland.

Taken overall, the Trump-Kim summit in Vietnam and wider grand diplomacy on the peninsula involving Washington, Beijing and Moscow following the Singapore summit underlines that the geopolitical tectonic plates are moving on the Korean Peninsula.

However, while historic change could yet be in the air, significant downside risks remain if the South-North dialogue ultimately proves a mirage, with warming of relationships potentially going into reverse.

Andrew Hammond (andrewkorea@outlook.com) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.