SEOUL \u2014 When President Trump tweeted on March 9 that he was willing to meet with Kim Jong-un, many South Koreans were jubilant \u2014\u2026<\/b>
\nSEOUL \u2014 When President Trump tweeted on March 9 that he was willing to meet with Kim Jong-un, many South Koreans were jubilant \u2014 including many who didn\u2019t expect much from the summit.
Shin Daeyoung, a 26-year-old man who had recently returned to Seoul after earning his BS in biotechnology from SUNY Buffalo, was among the excited early skeptics.
\u201cTrump might change his mind in one second, just like that,\u201d he said, snapping his fingers, adding that both Kim and Trump \u201care unpredictable guys. They just don\u2019t care what others think.\u201d
As one of the journalists on a recent press tour in South Korea\u2019s capital, I spoke with a cross section of locals \u2014 both fans and critics of Trump\u2019s approach \u2014 and then reconnected with some of them on the eve of the June 12 summit in Singapore. During the past three months, even many of the initial scoffers have come around to the opinion that we could be witnessing a real turning point in inter-Korean relations \u2014 albeit a gradual bend in the road rather than a sharp U-turn.
Differences of opinion tend to be generational. Some older South Koreans, who still remember how Kim\u2019s father and grandfather used negotiations to play for time while building up the North\u2019s weapons program, don\u2019t trust the North Korean dictator to play fair. But their children and grandchildren tend to be more hopeful that Trump\u2019s devil-may-care negotiating style could spark real change on the Korean peninsula.
Park Hyun-sook, an English-language tour guide in her mid-40s, was among those who initially thought Kim would never give up his nuclear weapons. Reached this week at her home in Seoul, Park said she and her similarly aged friends were now optimistic about the summit. \u201cPerhaps shooting missiles off was part of Kim\u2019s plan,\u201d she said. She even praised Trump\u2019s public letter initially canceling the summit \u201cto make Kim embarrassed and nervous.\u201d
Park said her mother-in-law, like many of South Koreans in their 80s, is worried the negotiations are moving too abruptly and Kim will cheat the United States. Meanwhile, Park\u2019s 20-something niece fears that the North could become an economic drag on the South if the two countries reunify. Although South Korea\u2019s economy is currently booming, job mobility is difficult and youth unemployment is above 10 percent. More than 70 percent of young South Koreans said they disapproved of reunification in a recent government-sponsored poll.
Choi Woosuk Kenneth, an editor at the conservative national newspaper Chosun Ilbo, would eventually like to see the two Koreas reunified. As the 54-year-old child of North Korean refugees who fled to the South a few years before the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War, he believes he has cousins in the North he has never met.
Choi, who has a son currently serving his compulsory military service, pointed out that millions of South Koreans are directly affected by the constant nuclear threat because they have a son or brother in uniform. He hopes Trump keeps focusing on the denuclearization of North Korea with complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement, commonly abbreviated as CVID.
\u201cThis is a vital precondition of economic assistance,\u201d he said. \u201cOtherwise, we\u2019re afraid that any aid will be used for the nuclear program.\u201d
Choi said the US role is more central today than it was during negotiations between the two Koreas a decade or more ago. The South was able to offer economic assistance to the North when the two Koreas met in 2000 and again in 2007. Now tough sanctions make that impossible. \u201cIf Kim agrees to CVID with Trump, South Korea is ready to move,\u201d with economic aid to the North, he said. \u201cIf Kim does not agree to CVID, it will be the beginning of his end. Whether that means military action or even more sanctions, the regime will not survive.\u201d
When I asked him this week if Trump would deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for successful negotiations, he agreed \u2014 conditionally.
\u201cJust getting a summit in itself is not going to warrant a Nobel Peace Prize. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that easy to get one,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if true CVID follows, that means North Korea is not going back to its nuclear weapons program [and] then of course he deserves a peace prize.\u201d
The world woke up to North Korea\u2019s growing nuclear threat a year ago, when the Hermit Kingdom began rapidly accelerating its missile tests, culminating in the country\u2019s largest underground explosion to date in September. Pyongyang claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb, and a series of aftershocks persisted for months.
Kim said he destroyed this site as a \u201cgoodwill\u201d gesture in May, inviting foreign journalists but not technical experts to observe his claim. Chinese scientists estimate that the earthquakes may have already rendered the tunnels unusable.
But South Koreans have been living under this cloud of fear for generations. Seoul is only as far from the demilitarized zone as Times Square is from Jones Beach. This point was driven home for me when I met Jung Kyu Sung, a seasoned journalist in his mid-50s. As he flashed his most winning smile at me, he asked what I thought now that North Korea\u2019s nuclear missiles could reach all of the continental United States. (A point that is debatable on technical grounds.)
He implied that the US is now in the thick of it with the South Koreans in a way we\u2019ve never been before.
While many South Koreans seemed optimistic, some living in the country are worried about potential repercussions if the summit fails. John Bocskay, a longtime American expatriate who moved to South Korea 20 years ago to teach English, said this concern pervades his South Korean wife and co-workers. \u201cThey see both Trump and Kim as being primarily interested in burnishing their own reputations and prestige,\u201d Bocskay, 47, said.
He said the Singapore summit felt like the old slogan for the New York Lottery: \u201cHey, you never know.\u201d
\u201cThough like the lottery,\u201d he added, \u201cI have yet to hear anyone I know express anything like real confidence in a positive outcome.\u201d
J. Alex Tarquino is the incoming president of the Society of Professional Journalists<\/p>\n

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