Opinion | North Korea’s latest moves show how Kim Jong-un has turned the tables on the US
- Pyongyang has its nuclear missile capability despite Washington’s efforts, and with help from Beijing and Moscow and a US election next year, Kim is now asserting leverage over America
Two North Korean actions during the past week demonstrate how paramount leader Kim Jong-un senses that, with China’s help, he has reversed the balance of leverage between his country and the United States over the last year and a half.
On Thursday, Pyongyang announced it had tested a new type of “tactical guided weapon”, with no additional details. Later the same day, senior North Korean foreign ministry official Kwon Jong-gun made a public statement calling on Washington to replace Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the leader of US negotiations with Pyongyang over the long-running nuclear weapons crisis.
How things have changed since 2017-18, when the Donald Trump administration’s approach to North Korea was an ostentatious display of US power.
In 2017, the emphasis was on cowing Kim’s regime by expressing a willingness to employ superior US military force against North Korea. Late that year, Trump threatened via Twitter to retaliate against North Korean “threats” – not an actual military attack – with “fire and fury like the world has never seen”.
In another tweet he said that if the North Korean foreign minister “echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!” – again, seemingly threatening to destroy North Korea merely for making hostile statements.
In 2018, the emphasis shifted from stick to carrot as Washington accepted Kim’s request for high-level negotiations based on his stated aspiration for “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” (North Korean code for ending the US-South Korea alliance and withdrawing US troops from Korea).
