The world media is at present agog with the news that the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the US President Donald Trump would meet by next May in a summit-level meeting with the venue still undecided. The news was broken to the media by the egotistic US leader like it was his initiative that led to the possibility of the meeting. In fact, the offer for the meeting came from the North Korean leader.
Nevertheless, the news of the proposed summit came as a relief to the international community. The US president has blown both hot and cold with North Korea leading to the US presidential election in 2016 and since he became the president, mixing calls for negotiations with threats, sometimes wild ones demanding North Korea to give up its nuclear options or else face US' military wrath. The threat has had no impact upon the unpredictable North Korean leader but enhanced tensions and the possibility of a limited nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. The proposed summit has now taken the possibility of conflict - and possibly nuclear conflict - off the table for the time being.
And as the international media and the international community welcomed the proposed summit, the US President found in the attention his opportunity to shine and he has so far made the most of it. He had projected himself as the proverbial dealmaker about which he had boasted leading to the US presidential election. However, since becoming the president he has had no success to back the claim. Therefore, he has been using the attention being focused on the proposed US-North Korea summit to good use like he has already shown to his country and to the world what a great dealmaker he is.
He has already claimed that North Korea, that has not tested any missiles since November 28 last year, has agreed not to test any more missiles till the summit "through meetings." These are claims of the US President that cannot be verified independently. Nevertheless, given the huge credibility problem that the US President has already created for himself, there is little reason to believe what he says that are mostly through his tweets.
In this instance, his tweet that North Korea had committed to the United States that it would not carry out further missile testing was not true. After the November 28 missile test, North Korea had made a statement that with it, it had completed its missile testing and its objective to develop ICBM that would be able to hit any part of the United States with nuclear weapons from its launching stations in North Korea. That statement had underlined loud and clear for President Donald Trump that while he was making his claims about his deal-making powers, North Korea had become the nuclear power with the ability to strike the United States with nuclear weapons that were at the heart of its missiles programme.
Therefore, the claims that President Donald Trump has been making to give the impression that he has achieved a major breakthrough in reining in the North Korean regime and its unpredictable and dangerous leader may be far from the truth. In fact, the truth may be quite the opposite. North Korea, as a nuclear power, is not just threatening and dangerous to US' allies namely South Korea and Japan, but has also already matured as a nuclear power that the US itself must heed.
Amidst all the media attention that the US President is getting at the moment with North Korea, a section of the international media nevertheless is highlighting the fact that there is little reason to get excited with the news that the US President would like. It is reminding that the US President had derided the North Korean leader as a "maniac", a "little rocket man" and went to the extent of publicly stating that the US would "totally destroy" North Korea if it dared attack any part of the US or the territory of any of its allies. The last statement raised many an eyebrow in international politics as they saw it as tantamount to the threat of a declaration of war.
The North Korean leader was not perturbed by any of the abuses showered on him by President Trump and maintained a stoic silence. Later it was obvious that his stoic silence was the cover under which the North Koreans completed their missile programme that brought in their nuclear status, a paradigm shift as the United States became aware that the entire US territory had meanwhile come within the range of North Korean missiles capable of delivering nuclear bombs. And when that was completed, the North Korean leader delivered the punch in answering President Trump's insults. He called the US president a "dotard", a term used to define "a person, especially an old person, exhibiting a decline in mental faculties; a weak-minded or foolish old person." That hit the bull's eye in puncturing the Trump's humungous ego.
Thus in the exchanges between the USA and North Korea since Donald Trump became the president, it was all progress for North Korea in their nuclear programme while from the US, its president tweeted insults galore with zero results. Thus when they meet, it would be the North Korean leader who would be booming with confidence, not the US President. There is no reason to believe that with the record with which he would be going to the Summit, the North Korean leader would catapult to the dictates of the US President. Therefore, while the US President has been making the claims, no one is really jumping in to make predictions about the outcome of the Trump-Kim Jong-un summit.
Nevertheless, South Korea is excited about the Summit because its leader Moon Jae-in had advocated strongly the diplomatic path for dealing with North Korea when President Donald Trump was on the warpath after becoming the US president. China that had also advocated the diplomatic path was happy with the proposed Summit. Japan, however, did not express any excitement, apprehensive because the proposal had come from North Korea and therefore could be a ploy for some sinister moves up the sleeves of the North Korean leader. The US President is trying to soften Prime Minister Abe with tariff concessions after he had recently decided to increase tariff on iron and steel.
The proposed Summit has lessened tension of conflict in the Korean Peninsula but not entirely due to power and influence of the United States. In fact, there is now little reason to believe that the US has the right handle on the North Korean crisis because of the erratic ways President Trump has handled it since becoming president. Influence over politics in the region has to a great deal passed from the US to China with the regional powers now aware that their dependence on the US for defence needs is not the same as it was before President Donald Trump. Thus the proposed USA-North Korea Summit may be the start of the process that could see the end of US' unquestioned and unparalleled dominance in the Korean Peninsula.
M. Serajul Islam is a former Ambassador.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
