Ryan Hass muses at Brookings about the meeting between Chinese President for Life Xi and North Korea’s Dear Respected:
Based on the extensive Chinese media coverage after the visit—as well as the overwhelmingly positive read-out in China’s official media—Chinese leaders appear to want to signal to a domestic and international audience that: 1) Beijing and Pyongyang each see it as in their interests to repair relations, 2) Beijing is determined to play a decisive role in any diplomatic process for dealing with the Korean Peninsula, and 3) Xi is the elder statesman in his relationship with Kim. Beijing seems to be trying to dispel any speculation that Trump and Kim could reach a grand bargain on their own about the future of the Korean Peninsula. The visit also served as a fresh reminder that Xi is unencumbered by emotion or sentimentality. In shaping China’s approach toward North Korea, Xi will not be swayed by charm or personal chemistry with Trump, nor will he be blinded by any personal feelings toward Kim.
I wonder that more Western commenters haven’t recognized the meeting for what it was: a vassal went to kiss the ring of his newly-crowned monarch.
Maybe something good will come of the incipient meetings between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. I’m holding to my own view, expressed here frequently. We shouldn’t be negotiating with North Korea at all over North Korea’s abandoning its nuclear and missile development programs. We should be negotiating with China.
One way of assessing whether my hypothesis is correct or not would be to see if a parade of foreign leaders, Asian, Western, and other, go to meet with President Xi over the next few weeks.
I would remark that the North Koreans (really Kim Jong Un) probably do not see themselves as China’s vassal.
Kim wants to show he has good relations with Xi before the summit talks; the price was he had to act like a vassal; and Kim agreed.
There’s a difference between pretending to be a vassal and truly being one.
If you pretend very, very well, there isn’t.
I will believe it is for real when North Korea says it wants to host Chinese troops again. Or North Korea abandons Juche for socialism with Chinese Characteristics.
One can debate the amount of influence China has in North Korea, but no deal on the Peninsula is possible without Chinese participation and approval. They fought a war once to make that point, and they won it. That time, they had a WW I army without enough rifles or all their troops, and no air force and no navy. A second Korean war would end in a unified Peninsula under Chinese domination.
Be fun to see how Putin, Xi meet. On a carrier off Vladistock or maybe a memorial to Amur river clash dead.
The deal is done. The rest is Kabuki giving Kim a chance to keep his head attached to his shoulders.