My remarks to China Newsweek on the Biegun visit to Seoul July 8-9 are included in their current issue. Here is what I wrote in full:

“In their visit to Seoul earlier this month, I do not believe Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun or Deputy Assistant Secretary for North Korea Alex Wong had any side meetings this time at Panmunjeom. Publicly, the U.S. is back to its old playbook of asking North Korea to change its position first before the U.S. will change its own (or give the appearance of change). This projects that the Trump administration is not neglecting the North Korea issue during the closing months of the U.S. presidential election, but not surprisingly, making no serious effort to move things forward. Though Trump said he would consider another summit with Kim, clearly he meant after he is re-elected – probably in 2021.”

“I doubt North Korea will rely on South Korea anymore in engaging the U.S. because from Kim’s point of view, President Moon “couldn’t deliver” — he couldn’t convince Trump to make a deal that both sides would agree upon. I actually don’t think this is Moon’s fault. Trump was utterly unrealistic in his demands to Kim because in real estate you buy the whole building, not just parts of it incrementally. Trump will not associate himself with an interim deal, because that’s not how he sees himself: someone who makes one big deal. North Korea may realize that, aside from historical and institutional U.S. hostility to North Korea and its nuclear and missile programs, Trump cannot be convinced to agree to a partial deal. Everything is take it or leave it. That’s why in Hanoi he said, “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

“So with less than two years left in his term, and with Trump continuing to pressure South Korea to pay vastly more for cost-sharing of U.S. troops there, President Moon is becoming somewhat irrelevant to U.S.-DPRK relations. His main strength is he has very good personal relations with Trump, but he cannot speak for him. And Biegun’s partial purpose in visiting Seoul in effect was to remind the ROK not to get ahead of the U.S. in inter-Korean relations — not to act unilaterally or be perceived to be circumventing UN sanctions. This plus the cost-sharing demands have created greater distance between the ROK and U.S. and imply that the U.S. has a veto over the improvement of inter-Korean relations. Nonetheless, I don’t see inter-Korean or U.S.-DPRK relations improving until the North sees who becomes the next U.S. president. We’ll know that anywhere between Nov. 3 and Jan. 6 next year.”

Many thanks to China Newsweek’s Cao Ran, who writes on North Korea.♦

Photo at top: Deputy Secretary Biegun with ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on July 8, 2020.