Donald Trump is reputed to have a short concentration span. Like the accomplished businessman he is, he demands concise explanations and he wants them fast. But as his confrontation with North Korea becomes ever more alarming, it must be hoped that his short briefings encapsulate some very long analysis by the State Department.
The North Korean state is a product of the Cold War. Until 1945, the whole Korean peninsular had been under a brutal Japanese occupation that sought to destroy Korean culture and language, even to the extent of forcing the population to take Japanese names. With Japan’s defeat, Korea under United Nations trusteeship was divided between the Soviet Union in the north and the Americans in the south. Moscow proceeded to arm the leadership of Kim Il-sung, a successful guerrilla commander against the Japanese, and in 1950 the North invaded the south. US-led UN forces drove Kim’s troops back and were on the point of defeating them completely when the Chinese army joined in. After three years, the war had reached a stalemate. A truce line was agreed along the 38th parallel, the original dividing line before the war began. Some 2.4 million Koreans died in order to achieve this.
The Kim dynasty has since sustained itself in power by constant propaganda that its people are threatened by invasion. Even while the country was racked by famine, Pyongyang spent billions developing “defensive” missiles and a nuclear arsenal. The leadership calculated that the more nuclear-capable it became, the safer it would be. This might have worked with the cautious President Barack Obama, but Donald Trump is a different matter.
Kim Jong-un and his advisers have not evidently adjusted their policies to take account of the new man in the White House. The threat that has been used to sustain the regime for over 70 years is finally becoming real. The result of an almost inconceivable nuclear shootout between North Korea and the United States is clear. The Kim dynasty would be destroyed along with so very much else. Yet Kim Jong-un’s brinkmanship has brought about the very real possibility of a preemptive US attack on its missile silos and nuclear arsenal, if it seemed that he were about to launch a nuclear warhead.
Both Washington and Pyongyang appear to be counting on Beijing to intervene. The Kim dictatorship would want China to promise a military response to any US attack. Trump would want the Chinese to force Kim to abandon his nuclear missile program. President Xi Jinping has a problem. Beijing is genuinely averse to interfering in the affairs of other states. For years it countenanced and gave crucial economic support to an aggressive North Korea as a counterbalance to US regional influence. Threatening to end that support could force the Kim regime to back down from this confrontation with the US, but such a climbdown could inflict a heavy domestic humiliation on the regime.
Moreover, at the same time, hobbling Kim Jong-un would mean Beijing giving to the Americans a victory in a region where China itself is seeking to check US hegemony. President Xi is doubtless looking desperately for a compromise that will allow both Pyongyang and Washington to save face. But as tensions rise that compromise is going be harder to find.
