Author: Scott Snyder, Council on Foreign Relations Supreme Leader and Korean Worker’s Party Chairman, Kim Jong-un, made a consequential shift in January of
Author: Scott Snyder, Council on Foreign Relations
Supreme Leader and Korean Worker’s Party Chairman, Kim Jong-un, made a consequential shift in January of this year. From testing intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs, Kim moved to testing diplomatic prospects for the normalisation of himself as an international leader and of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.
Having announced a shift from simultaneous nuclear and economic development to a sole focus on the latter at a party meeting in April, Kim proceeded to pursue a peaceful international environment that would be favourable to economic development. He participated in a series of summit meetings throughout the year, including three each with South Korean and Chinese presidents Moon Jae-in and Xi Jinping, and a landmark meeting with US President Donald Trump in Singapore.
Kim leveraged his newfound international recognition to boost his domestic prestige while blunting the full effects of international sanctions on North Korea’s economy. He also attempted to transform the external security environment by overcoming hostilities with the two biggest threats to North Korean security, the United States and South Korea.
Kim’s campaign for normalisation received essential support from South Korea’s President Moon, who has persistently advocated for a denuclearisation-embedded peace process as a substitute to prior international efforts to draw North Korea into a peace-embedded denuclearisation process.
At his first meeting with Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom in April, Moon sought to marry summitry with process by institutionalising inter-Korean cooperation in three areas: inter-Korean relations, military tension reduction and denuclearisation.
