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Politics

الرئيس كيم يعود إلى الواجهة

Jun 24, 2020 Kent Harrington

أتلانتا - مثل الشخصية الرئيسية في مسلسل تلفزيوني طويل، بدأ الزعيم الكوري الشمالي كيم جونغ أون الأزمة الأخيرة في شبه الجزيرة الكورية بمسرحيات مألوفة. بعد قطع جميع الاتصالات مع كوريا الجنوبية في وقت سابق من هذا الشهر، قصف نظام كيم المبنى الذي كان يستضيف فيه دبلوماسيين كوريين جنوبيين. وقد أعاد نشر القوات في مناطق حدودية منزوعة السلاح وأصدر تهديدات مُتجددة بالعنف ضد الجنوب. وتلت خطب التهديد الرنانة أداء كيم الذي سرق الأضواء في مايو/ آذار، عندما أعلن أن كوريا الشمالية ستعزز استثمارها في "ردع الحرب النووية".

من جانبها، تجاهلت إدارة الرئيس الأمريكي دونالد ترامب الأحداث الأخيرة لسبب وجيه. بعد عامين من اللعب مع ترامب في مؤتمرات القمة التي نظمت من أجل الاستهلاك التلفزيوني، أصبح كيم مقتنعًا بأن قصة الدراما الصينية قد استنفدت نفسها، وأن الرواية القديمة ستحافظ على زيادة شعبيته.

بعد فصل مكاسبه السياسية عن سياسات ترامب غير المسؤولة، يؤكد كيم الآن بشكل لا لبس فيه على مكانة كوريا الشمالية كقوة نووية. لتعزيز هذه النقطة، قام بترقية الجنرال المسؤول عن البرنامج النووي ليعمل نائبًا لرئيس اللجنة العسكرية المركزية، مع مكافأة 69 جنرالا آخرين ساهموا في النجاح الاستراتيجي للبلاد في السنوات الأخيرة.

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j. von Hettlingen Jun 25, 2020

Kent Harrington explains Kim Jong-un’s return to belligerence after a short bromance with Trump, who does not care less that his reckless foreign policy poses a risk to America’s national security. Trump’s three meetings with Kim Jong-un so far showed that he would do anything, even undermine his country to draw the nation’s and the world’s attention to himself, seeking constantly highprofile photo-ops for political gains.
The author says the Kim-Trump reality show had hardly yielded any concrete progress on denuclearising the Korean Peninsula, the issue that had led to international sanctions on North Korea in the first place. For all the fanfare, Trump’s first meeting in Singapore with Kim in June 2018 was rich in symbols, but short on substance. On would only call the summit historic if it led to something more substantial than just cautious hope.
Critics say Trump had bolstered Kim’s image, bestowing legitimacy on the North Korean despot, while undermining global pressure to force the North to make concessions. Trump refuses to understand why successive administrations since the 1953 armistice that ended active fighting in the Korean War, have been regularly frustrated and alarmed by Pyongyang’s declarations and actions. After decades of talks, any breakthrough was followed by disappointments.
Trump’s narcissistic illusion made him believe that he would succeed where his predecessors had failed. However his summit with Kim in February 2019 in Hanoi collapsed abruptly. Although he flew to South Korea in June after the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, urging Kim to meet him at the Demilitarised Zone, and becoming the first sitting president to step into North Korea, since then Kim has returned to the same old strategy of belligerence, conducting a number of missile tests.
The author says Trump’s “maximum pressure” has failed, because China plays a crucial role in propping up the Kim regime, which relies on Beijing for around 90% of its overseas trade. Trump’s tensions with China have further encouraged Beijing to forge closer ties with Pyongyang, like funneling “$2.5 billion into Kim’s nuclear weapons, missile, and high-tech programs,” despite sanctions. Not only does Beijing fear that the fall of Kim’s regime would trigger an influx of refugees into China, it abhors the idea of having assertive neightbour in its backyard after the reunification of the two Koreas under US aspices. President Xi Jinping wants to show Trump that he has the key to the hermit kingdom in Pyongyang.
Althoulgh Kim’s “military hardware remains far inferior to the US-furnished armor and aircraft across the border, the North has nonetheless managed to upgrade both the accuracy and reach of its weapons.” Sadly, South Korea – despite having “a major technological edge in an all-out war” – will bear the brunt of aggression from the North, which has “placed 70% of its 1.1 million-strong army within 60 miles of the Demilitarized Zone.” Seoul, with some 25 million people, and accounting “for half of South Korea’s population and 70% of its GDP,” are well within the North’s sights. “By one estimate, the North could rain down 25,000 artillery rounds on the Seoul metropolitan area – including a major US military compound – in the space of just ten minutes.”
Apart from browbeating Japan and South Korea and demanding them to contribute more to hosting US troops on their soil, Trump has also antagonised America’s staunches alles in Asia, by pitting them against one another. He should have tried to mediate and help the two to overcome their historical grievances when Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula in 1910 and committed heinous war crimes there.
Their relations in recent years have been so fraught that “last year, South Korea threatened to pull out of a bilateral intelligence-sharing arrangement before reversing course under US pressure. As in South Korea, most Japanese have no confidence in Trump’s handling of international affairs. Such factors inevitably will contribute to diplomatic disarray between the US, South Korea, and Japan, all of which will benefit Kim.”
With the US turning its back on Japan and South Korea, China could claim hegemony in the region, and North Korea would have one worry less about denuclearisation, even though Beijing does not see Pyongying as its natural ally. Nevertheless, Kim faces “formidable challenges” – an economic meltdown due to sanctions and the lack of resources to feed the population and create jobs. It remains to be seen how long he can maintain his iron grip on the country to quell possible protests and uprisings.
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Peter Schaeffer Jun 24, 2020

The title of this article is "Chairman Kim Goes Back on Script" which the content of the article fully supports. Of course, we have the obligatory swipe at Trump. In real life Trump has done no better or worse than his predecessor in Korea. N. Korea can only be contained. It may or may not change its behavior. However, the US won't drive the process.
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الرئيس كيم يعود إلى الواجهة

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