Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un have very different objectives from their on-again, off-again negotiations. More work needs to be done to build trust and align the leaders on a basic common goal.
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Articles on denuclearisation
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US President Donald Trump stole the show over the weekend with seeming breakthroughs on the China trade war and North Korea. Disaster has been averted, but for how long?
Every time North Korea needles the US with another provocation, it makes it harder for Donald Trump to mobilise the domestic support for a return to the negotiating table.
North Korea is a major military threat to the US and its Asian allies, but exactly how powerful are its nuclear weapons? An earth scientist explains why it’s hard to answer this question.
Any meaningful breakthrough in the relationship between the US and North Korea is once again stalled by the insistence on denuclearisation.
Any meaningful way forward must be based on imagination and mutual understanding.
With all the drama between Trump and Kim, it’s easy to forget that the US is not the only nation involved in denuclearizing North Korea. China is hugely influential — but it’s not clear quite how.
Donald Trump is unmoved by high risks and wild odds, apparently feeling that his sheer cunning will always win, including, now, in geopolitics — his latest casino.
At this stage one can only judge the atmospherics and optics of the summit, and on that basis, Beijing and Pyongyang have plainly come out ahead, while Tokyo and Seoul seem to have been overlooked.
Looking at the agreement, it appears that Kim Jong-un has outmanoeuvred Donald Trump.
One noticeable omission was any mention of “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation” - whether this was strategy or capitulation on President Donald Trump’s part remains to be seen.
The highly awaited summit has the potential to lead to real peace on the peninsula- but only if both countries can find a common interest on which to build an agreement.
The end of denuclearisation politics has opened new possibilities for the direction of the Korean Peninsula, but the tensions of 2017 remind us of the possibility of disaster.
Top contributors
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Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University
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Director, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University
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Reader in International Relations, Aston University
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Dean, School of Global Studies, Oklahoma State University
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Assistant Professor, Monmouth College
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Assistant Professor of Communication, Oklahoma State University
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Associate Professor in International Development Studies, Dalhousie University
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Reader in Asia Pacific Studies (with special reference to Korea), MA North Korean Studies Course Leader, Co-Director of the International Institute of Korean Studies, University of Central Lancashire
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Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University., La Trobe University
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PhD Candidate, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
