Kim Jong Un Visits China, Comments on Denuclearization

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a surprise visit to Beijing this week, marking Kim’s first trip outside North Korea since taking power in 2011. The trip is part of Kim’s effort to project strength before his meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae next month and President Trump in May. Kim stated he is willing to consider denuclearization under several conditions; the question is whether those conditions will be palatable to the Trump administration.

While Kim’s surprise visit to China suggests a return to warmer ties with Beijing, Kim and Xi still have ways to go before the two nations are as close as “lips and teeth” again. Sino-North Korean high-level exchanges have dropped since Kim Jong Un took power in 2011. Ties worsened in 2014 after Kim executed his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who maintained close ties with Beijing and advocated for China-backed economic reforms for North Korea. Under pressure from Washington, China is also enforcing sanctions at an unprecedented level and has banned work visas for North Korean overseas workers.

During his visit to China, Kim stressed that the path to North Korean denuclearization depends upon the U.S. and South Korea responding to Pyongyang’s goodwill by creating an atmosphere for peace and stability in the region. Kim’s rhetoric suggests that North Korea will act when the U.S. lifts sanctions. The comments echo recent North Korean state media commentary that called on Washington to “give up the futile sanctions” to establish a favorable atmosphere for the Korean peninsula. Of course, the U.S. has eased pressure in the past, only to see North Korea repeatedly violate the understandings that the two countries had reached.

However, sanctions relief is not Kim’s main goal. Rather, North Korea has consistently expressed it will only denuclearize in response to a “security guarantee” from the U.S. and its allies – a deceptive way of saying Pyongyang wants U.S. troops to withdraw from South Korea. Indeed, the question for Washington is whether Kim can be pressured to accept denuclearization while maintaining the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

As the U.S. and South Korea prepare for their respective summits with North Korea, both governments are certainly aware of Pyongyang’s history of deceit. Close coordination with South Korea, as well as Japan, will be crucial to ensure that Pyongyang does not gain diplomatic leverage. The Trump administration must also keep up its “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions to sustain economic leverage, as well. President Trump recently tweeted that this is his plan. From there, as the summits draw near, the U.S. and its allies must be vigilant to avoid the same diplomatic traps that riddled past negotiations with North Korea.

Mathew Ha is a research associate at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, focused on North Korea. Follow him on Twitter @MatJunsuk.

Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.