North Korean officials have toured China to discuss economic development. Speculators are snapping up property along their common border. And South Korea is studying ways…
North Korean officials have toured China to discuss economic development. Speculators are snapping up property along their common border. And South Korea is studying ways to boost engagement with its isolated neighbor to the north.
Across the region, there are signs that U. S. President Donald Trump’s campaign of “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons is weakening ahead of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday.
Trump, along with leaders like South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, have credited the pressure campaign with bringing Kim to the negotiating table through a combination of international sanctions, political isolation, and threats of military action.
However, unless there is a major provocation or resumption of nuclear testing or missile launches by North Korea, strategists and academics say it is unlikely that maximum pressure will ever fully return.
“Trump’s campaign is over,” said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. “The diplomatic openings with North Korea have already been taking a toll on the maximum pressure campaign.”
Trump has himself said he doesn’t want to use the term “maximum pressure” any more because of improving relations with North Korea.
Joseph Yun, the United States’ former top negotiator with North Korea, told a Senate hearing on Tuesday: “Practically it is not possible to continue maximum pressure when you’re talking with your adversary. I don’t think you can have serious engagement as well as maximum pressure.”
Preparations are already underway in China, South Korea and Russia, which share land borders with North Korea, for better ties with the isolated nation.
Officials from South Korea visited a shuttered joint economic project in Kaesong, North Korea, on Friday, part of a government effort to prepare for a possible easing of sanctions.
Although they are wary of rushing into an unpredictable political situation, South Korean businesses representatives and North Korea experts gathered at a conference in Seoul on Thursday to discuss potential inter-Korean cooperation.
“From a company’s perspective, that (maximum pressure campaign) may be gone this time, given the North-U. S. summit is happening soon and Kim Jong Un’s will to develop the country’s economy is visible,” an official from a major South Korean construction firm told Reuters on the sidelines the conference, asking to remain unnamed as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Along China’s border with North Korea, speculators are buying land and traders are stockpiling cheap North Korean coal amid hopes that restrictions will soon be lifted.
“It’ll be good if North Korea opens up,” said a hat seller in the border city of Dandong, who only gave her name as Yang. “The people there are so poor, it’s like China in the 1980s.”
She said the number of North Koreans shopping in the city had dropped in recent months after the sanctions were tightened.
