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From Singapore to Hanoi and Beyond: How (Not) to Build Peace between the U.S. and North Korea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un met in Hanoi only to part ways abruptly without producing an agreement. Their failure stems, I argue, not from the difference between Trump's “big deal” and Kim's “small deal,” but from the incompatibility in their conceptions of the future of the Korean peninsula as well as a common lack of a vision for Northeast Asia. In its zeal to compel the North to disarm, the Trump team conditioned its lifting of UN sanctions on the North's disarmament of WMDs, not just nuclear weapons. But the Kim team was so singularly focused on enticing Trump to accept a deal that it put on the table what it thought was a big concession, only to be called upon for more. South Korea now has a critical role to play to bring the two parties together to a broader vision for a denuclearized peninsula that is anchored to a more peaceful Northeast Asia.
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Notes
1 This is an expanded and updated version of the keynote speech delivered at the symposium “To End the Korean War? Peace on the Peninsula” University of Virginia, March 20, 2019. Available here. Some parts are drawn from my op-eds in Hankyoreh and OhMyNews. I thank the symposium organizers, especially Seunghun Lee, and participants as well as Mark Selden and Gavan McCormack for their helpful feedback.
2 Reuters reported that in Hanoi President Trump handed Kim a document that detailed what the Americans defined as denuclearization. It reportedly included four additional demands: “to provide a comprehensive declaration of its nuclear program and full access to U.S. and international inspectors; to halt all related activities and construction of any new facilities; to eliminate all nuclear infrastructure; and to transition all nuclear program scientists and technicians to commercial activities.” Lesley Wroughton, David Brunnstrom, “Exclusive: With a piece of paper, Trump called on Kim to hand over nuclear weapons,” Reuters, March 30, 2019.
3 Stephen Biegun and Helene Cooper, “A Conversation with U.S. Special Representative Stephen Biegun,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 11, 2019.
4 Biegun lists two additional actions taken by Pyongyang: the return of the remains of U.S. soldiers and a U.S. citizen. Ibid.
5 One new sanction was announced in each of the months of January and February, and the Treasury Department reissued the existing North Korea sanctions regulations on March 1st 2018. U.S. Department of Treasury, “2018 OFAC Recent Actions.” Available here.
6 Ri Yong Ho, DPRK's Foreign Minister, revealed after the Hanoi summit that the North Koreans asked the Trump team to lift the five UN sanctions that affected civilian sectors
7 Gregg Re, “Bolton claims Trump doesn't necessarily believe Kim on Warmbier, says third summit possible,” Fox News, March 3, 2019.
8 Dexter Filkins, “John Bolton on the Warpath: Can Trump's national-security adviser sell the isolationist President on military force?” The New Yorker, April 29, 2019
9 According to CNN, Trump “described Kim as singularly focused on ending the sanctions that have crippled his economy and helped bring him to the negotiating table in the first place.” Kevin Liptak and Jeremy Diamond, “‘Sometimes you have to walk’: Trump leaves Hanoi with no deal,” CNN, February 28, 2019.
10 According to the SPA reports for the past several years, the national income has continuously grown faster than the trade performance, presumably because a growth in the domestic economy can more than compensate for a slower trade growth. In contrast, Iran is so heavily dependent for the economy on oil exports that international sanctions took a serious toll.
11 This is an old slogan, first used by the Japanese in the early 1930s and the Chinese later, that prizes building an independent, not necessarily autarkic, economy with one's own efforts and without relying on outside assistance. Kim Jong Un brought it up in his 2017 new year's address, after having used a slightly different formulation, “자강력 (自強力)” in the 2016 new year's address. The Rodong sinmun ran a major editorial on December 12, 2018, and the campaign seems to be picking up fervor the following year.
12 Jae-Jung Suh, “Kim Jong Un's Move from Nuclearization to Denuclearization? Changes and Continuities in North Korea and the Future of Northeast Asia,” The Asia Pacific Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 10, No. 2 (May 15, 2018).
13 Jae-Jung Suh, “Half Full or Half Empty? North Korea after the 7th Party Congress,” The Asia Pacific Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 14, No. 9 (July 15, 2016).
14 Jae-Jung Suh, “The Imbalance of Power, the Balance of Asymmetric Terror: Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) in Korea” in Imbalance of Power: Transforming U.S.-Korean Relations, edited by John Feffer (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 64-80.
15 North Koreans have clearly indicated what they mean by the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. In a National Defense Commission's statement of June 15, 2013, for example, its spokesperson explains its understanding as “the denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula, including South Korea, and the most thorough denuclearization that aims to completely terminate nuclear threats from the U.S.”
16 Kim, International Secretary of the Korean Workers Party, met Arnold Kanter, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, on January 21 1992 to explore the possibility. Such explorations resulted in the Geneva Agreed Framework of 1994 that included the normalization of the relationship as one of the objectives. 백학순, “북미정상회담: 배경, 이슈, 전망,” 정세와 정책, 265호 (2018년 4월).
17 Kim Dae-Jung, Conscience in Action: The Autobiography of Kim Dae-Jung, translated by Jeon Seung-hee, (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 645-6.
18 Article 2 of Joint Statement of the Six Party Talks, issued on September 19, 2005, commits Pyongyang and Washington to respect each other's sovereignty, peacefully coexist, and normalize their relationship. Article II of February 13th Agreement of 2017 commits Pyongyang and Washington to start a bilateral talk to open a diplomatic relationship.
19 “국방위 조미당국사이에 고위급회담을 가질것을 제안,” 조선중앙통신, 2013.6.16.
20 Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and South Korea's President Kim Dae-Jung apparently shared such a view. Kim Jong Il told Kim Dae-Jung during their summit in 2000 that he agreed that U.S. forces should remain in Korea even after reunification in order to maintain a balance of power. Ibid.
21 The central government budget, which correlates with the national economy, has continuously grown at 4.6~6.3% annually since 2014. While the North's exports to China fell by 87% and its imports by 33% from 2017 largely due to UN sanctions, its trade volume in 2018 was still larger than in 2009 or 2010. Despite the trade decrease, the domestic market remained stable—unlike Iran that saw a tripling of market prices from 2010 to 2015. The market price of rice, for example, remained stable at a lower level in 2018 than the previous year. The central government budgets were drawn from Rodong sinmun, various years. Trade and rice prices are from Lee Suk, “총괄: 2018년 북한경제, 위기인가 버티기인가?”, KDI 북한경제 리뷰 (2019년 2월) pp 3-28.
22 Andrew Bacevich, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010).
23 Kim Jong Un pledged in the summit meeting with Moon on September 19, 2018 that the Yongbyon nuclear facilities would be permanently dismantled if the U.S. took “corresponding measures.” Pyongyang Joint Declaration of September 2018.
24 Osgood, Charles Egerton. Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-Reduction, a Key to Initiative in Foreign Policy. Urbana: Institute of Communications Research University of Illinois, 1960.
25 “[전문] 北리용호·최선희 심야 기자회견 발언(종합),” 매일경제, 2019.03.01.
26 정욱식, “북한에 '항복 문서' 들이민 미국, 이면엔 '행정 쿠데타',” 프레시안 2019.4.5.
27 김정은, “[전문] 김정은 위원장, 최고인민회의 시정연설-1.” 매일경제, 2019.04.13.
28 Foreign Minister Ri stated after the summit that “it might be difficult for an opportunity like this to come again.” First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui also described the opportunity as “천재일우 (千載一遇) [once in a thousand years,” indicating a better deal would be highly unlikely. “[전문] 北리용호·최선희 심야 기자회견 발언(종합),” 매일경제, 2019.03.01.
29 김정은, op. cit.
30 Phillip Zelikow, Keynote Address at the symposium “To End the Korean War? Peace on the Peninsula” University of Virginia, March 20, 2019. Available here.
31 Moon Jae-in and Kim Jon Un, Pyongyang Joint Declaration, September 19, 2018. In their Panmunjeom Declarationi for Peace, Prosperity, and Unification of the Korean Peninsula, April 27, 2018, they agreed to “make joint efforts to alleviate the acute military tension and practically eliminate the danger of war on the Korean Peninsula.”
32 Nak-chung Paik, “South Korea's Candlelight Revolution and the Future of the Korean Peninsula,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 23, No. 3 (December 1, 2018).
33 It might have been a poisoned carrot in the sense that in this speech, he openly introduced the demand on WMDs. Nevertheless, his speech is noteworthy for its cognitive framework radically different from the traditional one. Stephen Biegun, “Remarks on DPRK at Stanford University,” Palo Alto, CA, United States, January 31, 2019.
34 The concepts of the sphere of deviance and the sphere of legitimate controversy were developed by Hallin to explain the U.S. media's coverage of the Vietnam War, but equally applicable to American discourses about North Korea. Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
35 Marilyn Young notes that the movement to end the Vietnam War accomplished much more than generating pressure on the U.S. government. It “opened up for debate not only the principles that governed American foreign policy since the end of World War II, but the larger structure of the nation and its political procedures.” The efforts to end the Korean War can perhaps draw inspiration from that experience. Young, Marilyn Blatt. The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991, p. 203.
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