'Juche 111'. A soft exit for Kim and the DPRK? (Step One)
As a long-time observer of North Korea (DPRK), I was relieved to hear President Trump refer to the Hermit Kingdom during a recent visit by Nato Secretary, Mark Rutte to the White House. My personal interest in DPRK dates from 2004, when I began work in Dalian in the NE of China and has continued since then. Even as under President Deng, China came to life and moved to a free market economy, the DPRK has remained a Stalinist dynasty wedded to the Juche 'Self Reliance' philosophy imposed by its founder Kim Il Sung after WW2 and continued by his son and passed on to the present incumbent. Donald Trump, with a deserved reputation for breaking the mould, was told by his predecessor Barack Obama that his 'biggest foreign policy threat was North Korea'. Trump promptly set in motion a programme of rapprochement with Korea and over the next four years, met with Kim three times. The first meeting was in Singapore, the second in Hanoi and the final showstopper at the Demilitarised Zone that saw Trump step over the 45th parallel from North to South at Kim's invitation. In my view, it is one of the foreign policy crimes of this or any other century, that President Biden didn't build on this brilliant start, but one is left with the conclusion that it was Obama who was calling the shots in the White House. There was no way that Barack was going to let Trump show him up for the total charlatan that he is. During the Biden administration, I began to formulate a plan for the audacious welcome of DPRK back to a civilised relationship with the West, should President Trump win another term. Well he has and it's time to set the 'Plan' out for consideration. The quotation from Shakespeare: 'Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown', applies to the Kim dynasty as does the intergenerational reverence for the Stalinist Juche economic and social model. My plan calls for the evolution of Juche, using the deep philosophic attachment to 'filial piety' or ancestor worship, that exists in East Asia and was perpetually on show among my students and colleagues in China.
The Plan
Trump's gift for rapid movement on a wide range of issues, presents me with a problem. How can I labour to produce a DPRK Plan if, at the next presser he airily announces a new DPRK initiative. For this reason I will content myself with writing about Step One and add extra instalments that fit with President Trump's evolving policy.The first thing that must be done is to signal goodwill. This should be done in a low-key way at the State Department (not White House) level. Having been effectively shut off during Covid, Kim has relaxed visitor restrictions and are actively encouraging tourism. This will ramp up over the next few weeks and by May there will be many visitors in or making their way to Pyongyang. Very much in American visitors' minds will be the horrible fate of Otto Warmbier, who thought it would be a great student lark to souvenir a portrait of Kim from his hotel and died in custody. State should therefore announce that a consular officer will be delegated to Pyongyang for six months from the beginning of May. The Embassy of Sweden handles US affairs in North Korea and it should not be too difficult for the Koreans to accept a temporary appointment, especially as it will materially help reassure free-spending American tourists. In everything connected with North Korea, the family of Otto Warmbier should be told in advance. The feral anti-Trump US media would like nothing more than a 'gotcha' phonecall to the Warmbier home. 'Yes we know. The State Department is keeping us informed' will be the ideal response when a reporter goes on a fishing expedition.The next step is what happens at summer's end? Wait for my next instalment!