Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton certainly didn’t look too happy (above) as he watched his boss contradict his comments earlier this week that North Korea could use the “Libyan model” of de-nuclearisation. Mr Bolton had suggested that Kim Jong-un could follow the path of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya who agreed to give up his nuclear weapons programme in 2003 in return for the lifting of sanctions. Mr Bolton’s suggestion seems to have deeply spooked Kim Jong-un who no doubt was thinking of the fate of Gaddafi in the years following his deal with the West – Libya descended into chaos and civil war and Gaddafi was eventually captured and brutally slain by Western-backed rebels.
Following Mr Bolton’s comments, North Korea’s vice-foreign minister Kim Kye-gwan released a statement denouncing Mr Bolton’s comments, as well as condemning new military drills between the South Koreans and the United States. Mr Kim warned that the planned summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump next month was under threat and said that the North wouldn’t be cornered into giving up its nuclear weapons. As I wrote on Wednesday in my blog, Kim Jong-un’s primary goal has always been the survival of his regime and his family dynasty’s rule over the country and it was clear that Mr Bolton’s comments represented a threat to that in the eyes of the North Korean dictator.
In what may be an attempt to get Kim Jong-un to the table in Singapore on 12 June, Donald Trump today said: “The Libyan model isn’t a model that we have at all when we’re thinking of North Korea.” The President argued that the deal with the North would be “something where he’d be there, he’d be in his country, he’d be running his country, his country would be very rich. If you look at South Korea, this would be really a South Korean model in terms of their industry […] They’re hard-working, incredible people.” Mr Trump appeared confident that the summit with Mr Kim would happen: “Nothing has changed on North Korea that we know of. We have not been told anything. And if it does that’s fine and if it doesn’t I think we’ll probably have a very successful meeting.”
Whether the North Koreans view the “South Korean model” as an acceptable alternative is questionable as the North Korean regime doesn’t particularly hold the South as role models as the Americans seem to presume they would. The North has often described the South as incompetent and senseless and even used language such as “human scum” to refer to North Korean defectors. The North also regard the South as American puppets, which is something that Kim Jong-un undoubtedly would resist for the North. The latest tensions are a setback however to Kim Jong-un’s apparent softening towards the South only last month when he was speaking of his summit with the South Korean leader Moon Jae-in as a “starting point” for peace and earlier this year with the co-operation between the two Koreas during the Winter Olympics.
Donald Trump may be trying to reassure Mr Kim that the United States isn’t interested in regime change in the North, but Mr Kim will certainly be thinking of this as a possible consequence, as in Libya, of doing deals with the United States. Mr Kim may believe that any softening of relations with South Korea and the West will risk his people realising how bad the situation is in the North and that the propaganda that tells them everything is great is shown to be lies. Of course, many in the North will already know this. They can see for themselves the hardship and restrictions they suffer in their daily lives. Mr Kim, however, has managed to keep control through isolation and brutality.
His fears are that the relaxing of such measures would only encourage his people to question his rule. We may reach the bizarre and outrageous situation where the West eases sanctions and rhetoric against the North but Mr Kim maintains his country’s harsh isolation and control over its population in order to ensure that his people don’t fully understand what is going on beyond their country. For example, the people of the North aren’t told where the massive amounts of food aid the West sends to them actually comes from. The leaders in the North don’t want their people to know that the West wants to help them.
It seems a horrendous prospect to me that, in return for a nuclear-free North Korea, we are prepared to allow Mr Kim to remain in power. What is the alternative, however? We can’t seriously consider attacking North Korea as long as it has nuclear weapons and if the North no longer has them then there will equally be little support for an attack on the North. In reality, as in Libya, it will ultimately come down to the people of North Korea. After decades of oppression and propaganda, would they have the desire or ability to rid themselves of the Kim dynasty as the Libyans ultimately rid themselves of the Gaddafi regime? The consequences of such a path would, as in Libya, simply descend the country into chaos and conflict which ultimately hurts the people we desire to be free of dictatorship. Libya was also a very different ball game. North Korea shares a border with China and Russia, neither of whom will stand by and watch North Korea descend into anarchy that may be exploited by the United States and South Korea.
STEPHEN NULTY 