11-11-2018, 11:56 PM
*** 12-Nov-18 World View -- North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted
****
![[Image: g181111b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g181111b.jpg)
Kim Jong-un at a mushroom farm (AFP/KCNA)
Now that the US midterm elections have taken place, there's no longer
any reason to pretend that North Korea is ever going to denuclearize,
and so North Korea's child dictator may be taking hard new steps to
pressure the Trump administration to get what he wants: Lifting the
sanctions with no requirement to denuclearize.
Last week North Korea's lead negotiator, Kim Yong-chol, refused to
show up for a scheduled meeting on Thursday with the US chief
negotiator, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This cancellation was
apparently unexpected, and the State Dept. scrambled to say that the
meeting had been postponed, and would take place "when our respective
schedules permit."
President Trump himself kept up the pretense last week by saying:
"We’re in no rush. We’re in no hurry. ... We’re very happy how it’s
going with North Korea. We think it’s going fine."
This comes at a time when North Korean is becoming increasingly
belligerent in threatening to resume nuclear weapons and ballistic
missile development if the United States continued to refuse to back
down on sanctions. China and Russia are also both pressuring the
United States to agree to ease sanctions.
North Korea is taking no real steps toward denuclearization, even
refusing to take the simple step of providing a list of all its
nuclear development sites. The symbolic steps that it was taking,
dismantling a missile test site that it didn't need anyway, have
apparently ended, based on satellite imagery. And a key facility in
the process of creating nuclear weapons grade uranium, is still
running.
Many people believe that North Korea is continuing development of
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, lacking only the ability to
openly test the developments. Many people also believe that they have
no intention of stopping that development under any circumstances, but
still hoping that international pressure will force the Trump
administration to left sanctions.
For the time being, the denuclearization pretense is continuing on
both sides. Once the North concludes that the Trump administration
cannot be pressured to lift the sanctions, then they'll probably also
conclude that there's no reason not to resume public nuclear and
missile testing.
North Korea has been playing hardball recently, and that may indicate
that the decision to resume testing is not far off. The "North Korea
crisis" has been out of the news for a while, but one way or another
expect the crisis to be in the news again soon, especially now that
the midterms are over. The Hill and The Diplomat and International Business Times and Daily Beast
****
**** North Korea - South Korea reunification talks continue
****
The office of South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in sent a gift of 200
tons of tangerines to North Korea's president Kim Jong-un on Sunday,
in return for a gift of mushrooms from the North. This gift is part
of a separate, but related, negotiation track going on between South
and North Korea.
More significant than the tangerines is that the The North and South
Korean military completed withdrawing troops and firearms from 22
front-line guard posts on Saturday. There are over 100 guard posts on
both sides, and the plan is to disarm almost all of them by next year.
The Koreas have also been clearing mines from front-line areas and
plan to start in April their first-ever joint search for remains of
Moon would like to push ahead with his more ambitious plans for
engagement, such as reconnecting railways and roads across the border
and normalizing operations at a jointly run factory park. However,
those plans would violate the existing UN sanctions. soldiers killed
during the Korean War.
Moon Jae-in has made it clear that he is extremely anxious to
normalize relations with the North, with the eventual goal of
reunification, and that he's willing to concede almost anything to the
North to accomplish this. This is true even though the North has
never repudiated its plan to conquer the South by force, and reunify
the two Koreas under control of the North. North Korea has an
unbroken record of lying and deception about almost everything, and
removing the guard posts may be a goodwill gesture to the South, but
it also makes it easier for the North's million-man army to cross into
the South, and that's what the North wants.
The North-South negotiation track may be separate from the
denuclearization negotiations, but they do affect one another. With
North Korea now playing hardball in the denuclearization negotiations,
which are completely stalled anyway, South Korean analysts now believe
that a planned trip by Kim Jong-un to Seoul in December is becoming
increasingly less likely.
According to one South Korean analyst:
<QUOTE>"South Korea will continue to try to make room for the
US and North Korea to continue negotiations and ease tensions
between the countries through Kim Jong-un’s visit to Seoul.
But for Kim, visiting Seoul without any progress in the US-North
Korea relations could be a burden because it would likely draw
more opposition from South Korea’s conservatives and more
skepticism from the US. I think Kim will decide on his visit to
Seoul after the high-level meeting between Pompeo and
Kim."<END QUOTE>
Assuming, or course, that the latter meeting takes place.
However, another South Korean analyst said that there's another way to
convince Kim to make his promised visit to Seoul: "I think North Korea
would want to come to Seoul on the back of some progress in its
relations with the US so that it could gain economic rewards --
economic assistance, for example -- from South Korea." Korea Herald
and AP and Russia Today and Korea Herald
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un,
South Korea, Moon Jae-in, Kim Yong-chol, Mike Pompeo
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted
- North Korea - South Korea reunification talks continue
****
**** North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted
****
Kim Jong-un at a mushroom farm (AFP/KCNA)
Now that the US midterm elections have taken place, there's no longer
any reason to pretend that North Korea is ever going to denuclearize,
and so North Korea's child dictator may be taking hard new steps to
pressure the Trump administration to get what he wants: Lifting the
sanctions with no requirement to denuclearize.
Last week North Korea's lead negotiator, Kim Yong-chol, refused to
show up for a scheduled meeting on Thursday with the US chief
negotiator, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This cancellation was
apparently unexpected, and the State Dept. scrambled to say that the
meeting had been postponed, and would take place "when our respective
schedules permit."
President Trump himself kept up the pretense last week by saying:
"We’re in no rush. We’re in no hurry. ... We’re very happy how it’s
going with North Korea. We think it’s going fine."
This comes at a time when North Korean is becoming increasingly
belligerent in threatening to resume nuclear weapons and ballistic
missile development if the United States continued to refuse to back
down on sanctions. China and Russia are also both pressuring the
United States to agree to ease sanctions.
North Korea is taking no real steps toward denuclearization, even
refusing to take the simple step of providing a list of all its
nuclear development sites. The symbolic steps that it was taking,
dismantling a missile test site that it didn't need anyway, have
apparently ended, based on satellite imagery. And a key facility in
the process of creating nuclear weapons grade uranium, is still
running.
Many people believe that North Korea is continuing development of
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, lacking only the ability to
openly test the developments. Many people also believe that they have
no intention of stopping that development under any circumstances, but
still hoping that international pressure will force the Trump
administration to left sanctions.
For the time being, the denuclearization pretense is continuing on
both sides. Once the North concludes that the Trump administration
cannot be pressured to lift the sanctions, then they'll probably also
conclude that there's no reason not to resume public nuclear and
missile testing.
North Korea has been playing hardball recently, and that may indicate
that the decision to resume testing is not far off. The "North Korea
crisis" has been out of the news for a while, but one way or another
expect the crisis to be in the news again soon, especially now that
the midterms are over. The Hill and The Diplomat and International Business Times and Daily Beast
****
**** North Korea - South Korea reunification talks continue
****
The office of South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in sent a gift of 200
tons of tangerines to North Korea's president Kim Jong-un on Sunday,
in return for a gift of mushrooms from the North. This gift is part
of a separate, but related, negotiation track going on between South
and North Korea.
More significant than the tangerines is that the The North and South
Korean military completed withdrawing troops and firearms from 22
front-line guard posts on Saturday. There are over 100 guard posts on
both sides, and the plan is to disarm almost all of them by next year.
The Koreas have also been clearing mines from front-line areas and
plan to start in April their first-ever joint search for remains of
Moon would like to push ahead with his more ambitious plans for
engagement, such as reconnecting railways and roads across the border
and normalizing operations at a jointly run factory park. However,
those plans would violate the existing UN sanctions. soldiers killed
during the Korean War.
Moon Jae-in has made it clear that he is extremely anxious to
normalize relations with the North, with the eventual goal of
reunification, and that he's willing to concede almost anything to the
North to accomplish this. This is true even though the North has
never repudiated its plan to conquer the South by force, and reunify
the two Koreas under control of the North. North Korea has an
unbroken record of lying and deception about almost everything, and
removing the guard posts may be a goodwill gesture to the South, but
it also makes it easier for the North's million-man army to cross into
the South, and that's what the North wants.
The North-South negotiation track may be separate from the
denuclearization negotiations, but they do affect one another. With
North Korea now playing hardball in the denuclearization negotiations,
which are completely stalled anyway, South Korean analysts now believe
that a planned trip by Kim Jong-un to Seoul in December is becoming
increasingly less likely.
According to one South Korean analyst:
<QUOTE>"South Korea will continue to try to make room for the
US and North Korea to continue negotiations and ease tensions
between the countries through Kim Jong-un’s visit to Seoul.
But for Kim, visiting Seoul without any progress in the US-North
Korea relations could be a burden because it would likely draw
more opposition from South Korea’s conservatives and more
skepticism from the US. I think Kim will decide on his visit to
Seoul after the high-level meeting between Pompeo and
Kim."<END QUOTE>
Assuming, or course, that the latter meeting takes place.
However, another South Korean analyst said that there's another way to
convince Kim to make his promised visit to Seoul: "I think North Korea
would want to come to Seoul on the back of some progress in its
relations with the US so that it could gain economic rewards --
economic assistance, for example -- from South Korea." Korea Herald
and AP and Russia Today and Korea Herald
Related Articles:
- US and South Korea resume some military marine drills, despite North's objections (05-Nov-2018)
- N. Korea's Kim Jong-un met Pompeo in a new Rolls-Royce Phantom, violating sanctions (13-Oct-2018)
- China, Russia demand that that some North Korea sanctions be lifted (29-Sep-2018)
- US imposes new North Korea sanctions on Chinese and Russian shipping companies (17-Aug-2018)
- NY Times publishes a generational analysis of South Korea (30-Jan-2018)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un,
South Korea, Moon Jae-in, Kim Yong-chol, Mike Pompeo
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
