Opinion

A dual-track strategy, with Chinese involvement, is needed to secure peace on the Korean peninsula

To get the peace process back on track, the US and North Korea need to link denuclearisation to a peace mechanism involving multilateral security guarantees. Essentially, the US and China would need to reach an understanding on the Koreas

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un wave during a parade in Pyongyang on September 18, 2018. Photo: Reuters

John Barry Kotch lived and worked in Asia for more than a decade as an instructor at LG Academy and visiting professor at Hanyang University’s Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul.

Published: 9:15am, 9 Apr 2019Updated: 9:32am, 9 Apr 2019

A little more than a year ago, one of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s highest-level aides arrived at the White House with a startling message; North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposed a summit meeting with US President Donald Trump, which he accepted on the spot. This week, Moon is slated to hold another summit meeting with Trump in Washington and, this time, he is on a mission to get the peace process back on track.

The historic Trump-Kim summit in Singapore set the two countries four goals in a brief communique: the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula; working towards a lasting and stable peace regime; developing a new US-North Korea relationship, and; the return of Korean war “missing in action” remains. (To date, only the last goal has brought results, with the return of the remains of 55 US servicemen.)

If the Singapore summit agreement was vague on details of denuclearisation, the Hanoi summit left no doubt that the interlocutors were not on the same page.