NK has been making promises to US presidents for decades. China has been their 'arms length' supporters for decades. China wanted all of Korea in the 50s and 60s, but the US did stop that move. The US is far from perfect, but it comes closer than either of these two countries.
While the NYTimes takes daily shots at Trump and appears to prefer that the US become a socialist or even communist country given it's support of extremists at home and abroad, it is wrong in it's support and praise of NK and China. Both countries lie and cannot be trusted; not even with negotiated and signed treaties. Kim wants money, China wants IP and resources; neither has any interest in ceding to US interests or the interests of the West. They will never honor an agreement, so why continue to make them?
Perhaps Xi didn't stay longer because they had real things to say and countries to manage and neither has time to play golf.
Just another shallow look at our weightless foreign understandings. If there's no war there's no nothing.
2
President Moon of South Korea opened the door for talks between Trump and Kim. Moon is the key man, not Xi.
There is no possibility for the DPRK to denuclearize as long as it faces an existential threat to its survival from S. Korea backed by the U.S.
The prospect that Moon opened for Kim is a reunited Korea friendly to both China and the U.S. and independent of both. Such a Korea would not need nuclear weapons. The agreement to end hostilities that both Koreas advanced offered a path to denuclearization. U.S. signing of that would have significantly advanced denuclearization as well as its linked step - reunification of Korea. Bolton nixed this as a concession too far. It is a step, not a concession.
Moon proposed joint negotiations of the Koreas with Trump. That offers a path forward.
3
It's always been a 'good cop, bad cop' routine between China & N. Korea (with US. in the hot seat). Nothing here convinces that it's changed.
1
For sure, there is no friendship amongst autocrats, especially these two. One horned his skills during the most tumultuous period of the modern China history, the Cultural Revolution and the other would murder his own kin at the drop of a hat.
President Obama and Chancellor Markel might have come close to have a personal relationship amongst contemporary politicians in the international arena
«But behind the public bonhomie, there was little to suggest that the visit — which lasted barely 24 hours — heralded any real change in the relationship between the North and its one major ally.» Just little over a week ago, the New York Times published an article (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/world/asia/japan-abe-iran.html) on Japan's Prime Minister Abe Shinzō's brief visit to Iran : «During Mr. Abe’s 24-hour diplomatic sprint, he also planned to meet with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei». Not a word in that article about how, despite the «public bonhomie» between Mr Abe and his Iranian hosts, the brevity of his visit suggests that this was a mere façade. May I suggest that article author Ms Perez and the NYT are attempting - not for the first time - to make bricks without straw, when they interpret the brevity of the visit as a sign that relations between the DPRK and China are not as close as the public display would seem to indicate ? Perhaps a more cogent reason for this brevity is that the G20 meeting in Osaka takes place in less than a week, between 28 and 29 June, during which Mr Xi is scheduled to meet Mr Trump....
Henri
2
Not everything is about the United States. In fact, the way things are going, less and less is. Hard to stomach, I know, but that’s the reality.
8
Backing up to Japanese occupation North Korea was industrial, South Korea the rice bowl for Japan. Famine common in mountainous land of the North in common times. Add the well grounded DPRK fear of America’s war machine and you have the world Kim rules.
His dealing with Trump will depend on Trump understanding that the nuclear stock pile with diminish gradually as Jane Perlez notes; Trump’s John Bolton finds that unacceptable.
“Both sides “need to have reasonable expectations and refrain from imposing unilateral and unrealistic demands,” Xinhua said.”
A reasonable wish, is Trump capable of seeing that? Let’s hope.
2
I wish NYT would stop quoting Thae. This is the guy who perpetuates the "Vietnamization" theory, a favorite trope of Korean right wing, that North Korea is developing the nukes as a bargaining chip to push American troops out of the peninsula and then take over South Korea. Yet he says when convenient that North Korean military is so dilapidated and vastly outclassed by the South, thereby contradicting himself.
You should take the words of dissidents or defectors with grains of salt. They often have agenda, as in case of Chalabi, or profit motive as in Shin Dong-hyuk. Thae could well be both. Keep quoting such person makes NYT itself look like a tabloid with agenda.
6
Xi Jinping's visit to North Korea has hardly been noticed by the wider public, because Trump has been all over the place on Iran. This allowed Kim Jong-un and Xi to work out a plan - how to get Trump back on board after the failed Hanoi talks in February.
Xi is going to meet Trump at the G20 summit in Osaka next week. And he will present himself as the go-between, proposing Kim and Trump to stick to reasonable expectations and abandon unrealistic demands from each other.
Both Xi and Kim are pragmatic leaders. Despite mutual wariness they know that Trump is their biggest headache and will work out their differences.
2
For me the picture of them clapping says a lot. Mr. Xi looking serious and Mr. Kim smiling but with the look of the inferior toward a superior, which is what he is.
It remains to be seen if the North and the US can ever come to terms. It has been a long road but unless they are willing to give up their nuclear weapons, I cannot see how either China or the US will ease up on the sanctions.
3
Why didn't Mr Xi stay longer? Harry Belafonte thinks he has the answer:
'Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and Xi wan' go home'
Harry may be right. But then again, he just got off the boat.
3
This article really does reflect a fantasy view of North Korea and China. Are we really expected to be surprised that Mr. Xi was able to take care of business with North Korea in 24 hours? Unlike some heads of State, Mr. Xi seems to know what he is doing and surrounds himself with a government that also is capable of functioning effectively.
Are we now measuring other diplomatic efforts by the appalling level of incompetence we are experiencing in the US?
16
Yesterday another pundit of NY Times portrayed this meeting very negatively regarding Trump. Today it is the opposite way. The fact of the matter is that Trump is in a much stronger position than these two leaders and he has specific aims related to Kim and Xi. What Trump is offering is good for everybody. As far as I know Trump is playing the cards very cleverly much better than any previous presidents, and of course against the advices of NY Times pundits and establishment bureaucrats.
8
great article...for those who like the weeds
I hope there is someone in the T admin
who isn't a weed killer.
Does our friend understand the subtleties of E Asian culture?
China likes North Korea just as it is. It is like a small yappy dog in front of your house. Everyone focuses on the noise and spectacle, thereby ignoring what is going on in the house.
14
The North's Kim is no doubt wary of China's rise, but it is US wishful thinking to imagine that he "fears" it. “Like everyone else, he is afraid of China’s rise.”
It is clear that he has more wariness about the US than about China, and for good reason. Bolton, topping off years of talk about nuclear strikes on the North.
24 hours is short? It is a lot more than Trump did. It is all that is needed to confirm understanding of previously communicated ideas. Trump may not do that, but everyone else does.
This concludes with the US fear, that sees the North's pursuit of nuclear weapons as the only question, and as an end in itself. "Mr. Kim’s offer — whatever it might be — would be designed to buy time, during which the North could keep building nuclear weapons."
The North puts such extreme resources into nuclear tech for reasons, not as an end it itself. If the US won't see much less address the reasons, then it has a fantasy view of what the North is doing. Disconnect with reality is no way to get ahead.
The US openly wants regime change, and unification on its terms, meaning total victory rolling slowly to keep the price down, essentially Germany's experience post-Wall. Survival against that, and some prosperity, is the North's goal, not fear of China, and not some mystical desire for nukes.
20