Beijing’s recent policy of studiously ignoring Kim hasn’t worked.
Paul French is a London-based analyst with a special interest in China and North Korea. He is the author of” North Korea: State of Paranoia” (Zed Books, 2015).
Kim Jong Un is communicating with the outside world, or at least the two parts of it that matter to him most at present — Washington and Beijing. Certainly the North Korean missile test during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the United States recently was a calculated message to the new Trump administration and so, it is probably safe to assume, was the apparent assassination of the supreme leader’s dissident half-brother Kim Jong Nam in Kuala Lumpur ( for which North Korea is being blamed ). Pyongyang is keenly aware that the new U. S. administration is yet to publicly announce its policy on the tense Korean Peninsula.
So far President Trump’s few pronouncements on North Korea have been vague. They indicate that he could opt for either a policy of vilification, not dissimilar to that of the George W. Bush White House and its “Axis of Evil” tone, or one of deal making, similar to that of the Clinton administration. Clinton sought engagement when Pyongyang, then run by Kim Jong Il, controversially restarted its nuclear program. Bush turned to demonization when the previous policy failed to stop the nuclear threat from the Peninsula. Trump has, in short order, talked tough on North Korea and Kim Jong Un, then suggested he might meet Kim (an idea he hastily reversed) and, in an effective continuation of the Obama administration’s policy, finally urged China to take the lead and apply pressure.
Eager not to be ignored, North Korea, by missiles and possible assassination, has forced itself more decidedly upon the president’s agenda.
