What Happened In Pyongyang?
In Singapore, not long ago, Kim Jung-Un and President Trump agreed to, AND SIGNED an accord stipulating the DENUCLEARIZATION OF THE KOREAN PENINSULA in exchange for lifting the economic sanctions we had imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea (DPRK). Yesterday, North Korea’s Capitol, Pyongyang, called into question that agreement and announced that it felt it was being “bullied” to denuclearize by the “gangster mentality” of the United States! WHTF?!!!! Excuse me Mr. Kim, but that was a diplomatic PRECONDITION to the meeting that you agreed to and attended! That was the essence of the accord that YOU SIGNED! So, as Hillary Clinton would say, “WHAT HAPPENED”? I have a THEORY.
It’s possible, of course, that Pyongyang is merely continuing its time honored strategy of agreeing to various conditions to obtain diplomatic concessions, and then proceeding to dilly dally and ultimately default on what was agreed upon. That would be the most common explanation. But I think there’s more to it.
In answer to the question “What happened”?….I would say, quite simply, that CHINA HAPPENED…. Specifically, it is the TRADE WAR with China that happened. How so? Simple. Since our trade policy with China was so much in favor of the Chinese, it’s likely that, as President Trump has indicated, it will be “easy for us to win”, and that outcome would be very disadvantageous to China. But those contingencies exist on a purely economic basis. China, however, has another, non economic, card to play: the behavior of their neighbor and ostensibly crazy protégé, North Korea.
China can use the DPRK to change the playing field. China has a long history of “pulling strings” in Pyongyang. Even recently, recall the intense increase in rhetoric that Kim spewed after his VISIT to China this spring. That eruption of China-inspired vitriol nearly deep sixed the summit of an by itself. But the summit meeting plans survived and the meeting took place and went well. But, THEN, came the trade war. China is again trying to poke the North Korean tiger. This gambit is designed to make it appear that DPRK is SO crazy, that the US will decide that, short of a full scale invasion, only China will be able to calm them down. And, rising to the occasion, China will offer to calm them down. They will be willing to do this because a nuclear and belligerent DPRK is NOT in China’s interests. But China will intervene only for a PRICE. And what’s the price? The price will be for us to quietly back off some of the harsh tariffs we’ve enacted, thereby softening the trade war. And, will we pay that price? My guess is that we will, because a nuclear and belligerent DPRK is NOT in our interests either, and a somewhat skewed balance of trade, though costly to us, is MUCH cheaper than any military options we might be considering.
So, will it play out this way? Will we rescind or partially rescind the trade tariffs that are so deeply offensive to China? Will the DPRK abandon the nuclear program that’s so deeply offensive to us?….As our President often puts it: “We’ll see”!