Xingjie Sun Deputy Dean of the School of Public Diplomacy, Jilin University
Trump tweeted, hoping to say hello to Kim Jong-un. The next day, they met at Panmunjom, and Mr. Trump was invited to cross the military demarcation line. In this way, a historic moment in US-DPRK relations was born again. The first incumbent U.S. president stepped onto North Korean territory, while Mr. Kim said President Trump became the first U.S. president to visit North Korea.
Did the third summit between the United States and North Korea just start with a tweet? President Trump told the media that he had a whim, and Kim Jong-un said that he had received the message the afternoon before the meeting. For Mr. Trump, the seemingly fortuitous meeting could yield more than a carefully orchestrated meeting.
In general diplomatic analysis, preparations for the U.S.-North Korea summit may have begun when Kim Jong-un wrote a letter to President Trump on June 11, and on June 23, Trump wrote back to Kim Jong-un thanking President Trump for his extraordinary courage in political judgment, taking into account its interesting contents. Did it mention that the two leaders would meet at Panmunjom in their exchange of letters? It is not ruled out that there will be such a proposal, but in the character of Trump, even if there is such a proposal, the two sides have not negotiated.
Trump visited South Korea after the end of the G20 summit, visiting South Korea should be a compulsory course, South Korea-Japan relations are not very good, if Trump meets with Prime Minister Abe twice, he will not see the President of South Korea when he goes to Japan, how can he say anything. Visiting South Korea is a routine, and when he arrives in South Korea, he has to go to the border between the two Koreas, and in 2017, Trump was going to the demilitarized zone, but the weather was bad and he did not go. When I arrived at Panmunjom, I didn't see Kim Jong-un, as if something was missing. The PRESIDENT of the United States visits the demilitarized zone, and Trump's visit to the demilitarized zone will not add any points to himself. What's more, the images of U.S. and South Korean leaders, accompanied by military officers, looking at North Korea with binoculars always feel unfriendly. When Trump and Kim Jong-un say hello, things change, and Moon Jae-in accompanies Trump not to inspect the military checkpoint, but to meet Kim Jong-un. The style of painting has changed, and The goal of Trump's visit to South Korea has changed.
From the perspective of conventional diplomatic operations, the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un is almost impossible, but Trump and Kim Jong-un are not conventional leaders, and THE US-DPRK diplomacy has been unexpected in the past one or two years, and at the same time, professional diplomacy and summit diplomacy are in a serious state of disconnect. U.S. North Korea Representative Biegun previously visited South Korea and proposed the idea of "simultaneous parallelism", but the spokesman of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs also severely criticized US Secretary of State Pompeo.
It can be seen that at the level of high-level career diplomacy, there has been no breakthrough between the United States and North Korea, and summit diplomacy has taken precedence over career diplomacy. The career diplomat of North Korea's diplomacy with the United States is Choi Sun-hee, vice minister of foreign affairs, and after Trump tweeted, Choi Sun-hee met with Biegun, and the meeting between the leaders of the United States and North Korea at Panmunjom was also implemented. Summit diplomacy is ahead of career diplomacy, and career diplomacy is only passive acceptance of the instructions of the head of state.
Summit diplomacy is highly dramatic. Trump announced his bid for re-election on June 18, beginning a re-election campaign. It can be said that almost everything Trump does in the future will serve the election. After Trump became president, the diplomatic achievement that can be taken is the Korean Peninsula issue, and Trump has changed the basic situation of diplomacy on the peninsula without conventional diplomatic operations. Trump has always flaunted that he has made history, the first incumbent U.S. president to meet with the North Korean leader, after the Singapore meeting, U.S.-North Korea relations have improved at the summit level, Trump believes that in the past year or so, North Korea basically "frozen" nuclear missiles, but also the United States is basically acceptable "denuclearization."
The Hanoi summit showed that without the intervention of professional diplomacy, summit diplomacy cannot solve the strategic problems of the United States and North Korea. Although Trump's approach in Hanoi has not been criticized domestically, it has substantially offset the effect of the Singapore meeting. Kim also threatened in April that North Korea would wait until the end of the year, and it is conceivable that if the North Korean nuclear issue re-emerges in the 2020 election year, Trump's diplomatic achievements on the peninsula will be destroyed.
The Panmunjom meeting was not a whim, but more like Trump's "raid" diplomatic action, creating explosive effects and adding points to his diplomacy on the peninsula. As for whether career diplomats can reach an agreement, that is not what Trump has to consider.
Moon took Trump to Panmunjom, but there was no Moon in the Freedom House meeting. Moon Jae-in has not come out of the role of "middleman" in the matchmaking of the US-North Korea summit, and perhaps he is willing to be the person behind the "Kim Summit". (Editor-in-Charge Jiang Xinyu)