Kim Jong-un Returns to China, This Time With Leverage

Making America great again will sacrifice our economic hegemony in the world. Kim will keep his nuclear weapons, China will further increase its economic influence in the Pacific trade region, and we will sink into atrophy arguing over illegal immigration! That's what Trump promised. He just didn't say it that way.

We can't avoid the disaster of 2,000 kids caged by new-hire enforcement people so frazzled they are ready to quit. Cages. Not to minimize this, but ten or a hundred times that many are suffering from 'welfare' cuts, outside cages. We live in a country where some horses are worth more than whole trailer parks full of West Virginians...To the subject: the thought of Kim J touring the wrangling power centers of the world with finesse and good nature is a little disturbing. If we make the simple hypothesis that his and the Don's mercurial charm is due to supercomputer analysis and direction, strange clarity chills our witness. Rumor is, the N Koreans have poured resources into quantum computing. If they have figured out how to program such devices where NSA efforts have stalled, they will always be two steps ahead. The world thinks they easily outmaneuvered our President. Are they preparing the conditions stipulated by a quantum i-Ching, for the last to be first? I mean, Kim J is coming out of nowhere. They said he couldn't even play, not even in Williamsport.

Kim Jong UN has more coverage in American media than any other important pressing issues and I am tired of reading about him and about North Korea. Separation of children from parents is much more important issue than Kim and his hermit kingdom.

Having secured America's unconditional surrender in Singapore without giving up anything tangible, Kim is meeting with his backer to plot the next defeat. So many world markets for China to gain and Trump to give away with his knee jerk tariffs.

North Korea knows it gets to pick one real alliance, between NK-China and NK-USA. Clearly, they're picking China, and so every move by the US to empower North Korea is actually a blow we deal against ourselves in the trade war with China.

Mr. Trump and his terribly unqualified Sec. State Mr. Pompeo, have been played so badly by Mr. Kim. Mr. Kim, has been, in control of this entire process. First Mr. Kim used South Korea to urge Mr. Trump to meet with him. Mr. Kim then met with Mr. Xi prior to meeting with Mr. Trump. When Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim met, Mr. Trump gave away the joint military exercise with South Korea and Mr. Kim gave away nothing. And now, weeks after his historic pick-pocketing of Mr. Trump; Mr. Kim is again meeting with Mr. Xi. Mr. Trump simply is not capable of controlling this situation and even more tragically, he appears to have no one on his team who appears to know how to either. It is difficult to see anything positive for the U.S. coming out of this unfolding debacle.

No wonder the signed agreement is so short on details. Both sides can interpret it in their own ways. Kim and Xi will spend two days together to decide how NK should handle this new deal so that it works for both of them - NK and China.

All America's adversaries are making hay while Trump's America is in chaos. That's what happens when a leader tries to govern by creating divisions and chaos. No great mystery there. Trump is handing it to them all on a plate. Meanwhile, our allies are just plain gobsmacked by the impotence of Congress. Two more years of this and there will not be an America left that anyone recognizes.

At first take a Summit with North Korea, a global trade war, renegotiation with Iran, and efforts to get Russia back in the G-8 would be too much to keep up with – not for the president of the United States. The more chips that come into the game and the more they move around the better it is for the American chess-master.

I'm sure Kim thanked China for the use of that 747 of theirs, and begin to name other places he'd like to visit around the world in hopes that the plane will be available....

The pupil is being summoned into the principal's office. At any time, China can cut off supplies (95%+ of all things NK needs to carry on living), yet they want the U.S./west to be continuously off-guard and spending oodles of time, money and effort trying to contain everything around the South China sea. The world barely noticed as Xi consolidated his power (for life) a the absolute head of a totalitarian state that abuses its citizens just as much as North Korea (if not more). Who knows what backroom deals the U.S. President (and his family) have with China and what things are being leveraged for personal gain to them ? Of course, that would mean releasing the tax returns, so the American public could understand them

The plot thickens.

Donald's condos on the beach appeal only makes sense to an idiot like him. It took them (Kim and Ji) a while to figure him out, but rest assure, they have.

China will CRUSH the United States, and WE will deserve it. Our children and grandchildren willl rightly curse us in our graves.

All these suspicions and speculations. The fact is that North Korea will need China more than ever when bereft of the nukes. There is absolutely nothing that the US can offer to irreversibly guarantee North Korean security, and China is the only thing that can provide a semblance of security. Granted, it not as good as the functioning nukes. But China is the second best thing.

China and North Korea have been getting along fine over the last year or so. Kim has been to visit Xi several times and the scope of the relationship seems to have been ironed out. Xi wants Kim to settle down stop the provocations and focus on economic reform of his country a policy that will benefit China in four ways. First, Chinese investment will rebuild NK. Second, China wants a stable peaceful NK. Absent a real threat from NK South Korea's preference for a significant downsizing of the US military presence in their country will be realised. 3) Once tensions and big power meddling are reduced as we saw with East and West Germany the bonds of kinship will result in a far faster reunification than anyone anticipated. 4) Once Korea is on the path to renunification natural currents of culture and economics will continue to draw them into China's orbit. (China is already SK's largest trading partner.) The only loser in this process is the US military industrial complex which can't cry too loudly. They still have their 800 other military bases around the world; many of which are in Asia and they can continue to poke and prod China from those redoubts increasing tensions and thus keeping the cash flowing. The money they lose on stopping the war games will no doubt be made up for by more naval war games to preserve "freedom of navigation" in China's most important commercial shipping lanes. Because you know China wants to shut down the commercial arteries that feed its economy.

Apparently President Trump's concept of negotiations being one county to another county is not something that Mr Kim recognizes. Nor does the rest of the world.

Mr. Kim has a right to visit China if he so pleases. Thank you.

We are watching trump's art of the deal unfold. He gave away the store for flattery.

Trump was just a rest stop for DPRK and China's plans for moving forward on the Korean peninsula and Asia region. Trump gave up military exercises, Kim gave up what? They wanted to see if Trump would fold, and he did.

"...Mr. Kim has yet to visit most of China, but even its most advanced cities might pale in comparison to Singapore..." Clearly, the writer of this article has not been to Shanghai, Shenzhen and a handful of other mega cities in China that leave many cities (including my own NYC) in the dust in terms of infrastructure, transportation and cleanliness.

Well that chubby, murderous Kim Jong Un is sure doing great lately. Got his one-on-one meeting with Trump, didn't have to give up any concessions at all. Got another direct meeting with China this week, doesn't even seem to be worried about being eliminated by artillery barrage or the like on the way to the meeting. Obviously he made a fool out of Trump (not hard to do) and was the big winner last week. I think this week, China is more likely to rein him in a bit. The CCP is not run by ignorant goofballs like Trump, they're going to be more difficult to deal with. And the CCP is what is keeping the DPRK afloat, when it comes right down to it, they're providing most of the electricity, fuel, and food in the DPRK, and they could blockade or conventionally invade that nation with comparative ease. So I hope this summit meeting doesn't go as well for Kim. It'd be fantastic if China took this opportunity to execute him, but it's too much to hope for. The primary goal of the CCP is to maintain the status quo in the DPRK so they don't have to deal with millions of starving refugees, and the CCP has never cared at all about human rights, so the horrors of the DPRK are not important to them.

"[Outsmarting] the Americans under Trump was an unbelievably easy job." You can say that again. Trump is easier to play than a pair a spoons. Thanks a lot Russia ... I can't wait to return the favor.

Mr. Kim is turning out to be a “very good diplomat,” Mr. Lankov said. “Like his late grandfather, Kim Il-sung, he might even learn how to outsmart the Chinese. The Americans under Trump was an unbelievably easy job.” It is no accident that Kim chose to meet with trump. He knows what an easy mark he is, and that any other President would have been far more prepared and wary about agreeing to any meeting, let alone a negotiated agreement. But trump was lured by the prospect of a Nobel, and has posited his new relationship as a real estate opportunity. As many have stated, trump is playing checkers as Kim is playing 3 Dimensional Chess.

A little longer historical perspective is in order on this whole complex matter. China and Japan both were at different times unprovoked invaders of Korea, Japan ultimately even seizing and ruling the peninsula as a colony from 1910-1945 until it was pushed out as a result of defeat in WW2. Back in the 13th century, Mongol-ruled China itself seized Korea and ruled it for a century. For long periods afterwards, China was more of a benign neighbor and protector of Korea until Japan's might ousted China as a force in Korean politics in 1895. To make matters more complicated, Imperial Russia became a strategic player in peninsular politics from the 1880s onwards until it too was ousted as a result of Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. After WW2, of course, as we all know, the new big powers impinging on Korea in both destructive and benign ways have been the U.S. , the PRC, the Soviet Union, and its successor, the Russian Federation. All this should make us appreciate the delicate though separate balancing acts that both Koreas have had to perform for security, survival and economic progress. North Korea's closeness with China will remain crucial to its survival, for it remembers how China intervened on its side in the Korean War. China itself can't let North Korea stray too far from its fold, for as Mao Zedong said, during the Korean War, North Korea was to China what lips are to teeth! The power that is most remote from that scene is the U.S.

" Heil to the Chief. " North Korea's Kim Jong-un has changed from the greatest tyrant ( which he still is! ) to the most sought out leader by US, China, Russia and whoever else trying to make fast bucks. Sanctions will be moot. And it is all due to Trump which made it possible. North Korea will be transformed, will get to keep his nuclear arsenal and have diplomatic relations with all those countries who are his neighbors, including our allies like South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. For a leader who has never stepped out of his country, he is making up for lost time. And that too with diplomacy! Unbelievable! Thank you President Trump!

I seriously doubt Kim will play China and the US against each other. I suspect he and Xi developed his strategy for handling trump and it was very easily done. Kim was never the nuclear threat, trump was, but he has neutered Trump. Kim and Xi seem to be working together.

Once again, Trump got played and outsmarted. This is what happens when you refuse to prepare and to listen to experts. In the end, the American people will lose. Hopefully, it will not be a fatal loss.

While the Bloviator-in-Chief brags about bringing "world peace," the real winners of the Singapore summit meet to compare their gains.

"This time, Mr. Kim arrived much as any other foreign leader might, landing at Beijing’s international airport and taking a stretch limousine to the city center." and a tip'o'the hat to Mr Trump... and the scourge of unintended consequences...for making Mr Kim "any other foreign leader"

but even its most advanced cities might pale in comparison to Singapore?? seriously this is stereotypical and ignorant as we do have a few mega cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen which outshines Singapore effortlessly, let alone Hongkong...

This is the part where Trump takes the country down with him because of ego. He sill make the stock market go down 50%, then say "see, this is a buying opportunity. I made the market go down to help Americans. Now empty your bank accounts and buy at this new low" "see, I did this for you"......is what he will say

Great work: Trump has legitimatized a brutal dictator. Next, he'll have his own YouTube comedy channel and be a regular on the US morning talk shows. Master the media and all criminal in-humanitarian acts are forgotten. Way to go Don.

Despite Trump’s video shown to Kim Jong-un and his entourage during the summit in Singapore that showcased how North Korea would prosper if it met America’s demands, Kim still knows how crucial it is to stick to an old ally like China. Trump wants him to give up the nuclear programme that he and his family took decades to build, while China is less focused on getting him to denuclearise than on getting him to fall into line. Beijing may eventually use trade and investment to keep him on side. With North Korea still struggling under UN sanctions, China’s political and economic support is still highly important, given Trump’s untrustworthiness. He withdrew from the nuclear dea with Iran in May and turned the tables on America’s allies last week in Canada.