Trump-Kim Summit Ends in Failure: Both Awaken from a Beautiful Misunderstanding

 Trump-Kim Summit Ends in Failure: Both Awaken from a Beautiful Misunderstanding

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 2, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

The "Second Trump-Kim Summit," which attracted the attention of the entire world, suddenly ended in failure from earlier optimistic atmospherics, quite surprising to the world. The failure this time shows that there exists on both sides quite enormous gaps in perceptions on the issue of denuclearization; however, these gaps had, for certain factors, been embellished or diluted before the meeting, until both sides found that something was wrong after having arrived from thousands of miles away. In the end, they could not but end the meeting abruptly.

Let’s first talk about the gap in perceptions about "denuclearization" between the United States and the North Korea. Before the summit, the US declared that it would no longer insist on the one-step denuclearization policy, and instead adopt a denuclearization policy of "implementation of agreement by stages," "synchronized delivery" and "simultaneous moving in multiple lines"; this was a pragmatic plan. The US emphasizes "implementation of agreement by stages," North Korea, besides closing down nuclear facilities, has to submit a list of all nuclear facilities, present a concrete progression for denuclearization, and open up to inspection by IAEA personnel, in order to achieve the three principles of denuclearization "completely, irreversibly and verifiably.” For the US, whether North Korea could comply in the implementation of the agreement by stages was the crux of the success or failure of this meeting.

However, what North Korea, on the other hand, expected was "synchronized delivery." In other words, when the North Korean denuclearization progression reached a certain stage, the US would, quid pro quo, partially or completely lift the sanctions imposed against North Korea. Under the circumstances of North Korea closing the Punggye-ri nuclear testing grounds and dismantling the Tongchang-ri guided missile launching pad, the US side would require North Korea to submit a list of all nuclear facilities in the country; North Korea naturally demanded that the United States gradually phase out economic sanctions. That is to say, whether the United States would lift the sanctions against North Korea became an important factor affecting North Korea’s willingness to denuclearize.

For the failure of the Second Trump-Kim Summit, one was that Trump was overly optimistic in interpreting Kim Jong-un’s intentions, in the end, he found that North Korea’s concessions were not as good as expected. Another was the unfavorable situation caused by Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony, leaving Trump distracted from diplomatic negotiations. The third was the US was worried that if the two parties had signed a denuclearization declaration not on parity, it would impact the atmospherics of the US-China trade talks in March. For these reasons, Trump decided to end the Summit ahead of schedule. However, at the press conference, Trump was still full of praises for Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping; this probably was to cover up his own diffidence, but at least he reserved an opportunity for another meeting by various parties.

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