 Hello, and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Professor Ajah Zehmet, and we'll be discussing the recent historic summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Hello, Professor. Hello. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. So what would be your first thoughts on the recent summit that took place in Singapore? I mean, beyond all the optics and about the declaration specifically, because there's been a lot of – the U.S. media has of course been going all out against Trump and even some sympathetic commentators have been slightly underwhelmed by the declaration. So how would you see it? Well, several things represent – one thing is that three of the five key players were not in the room. That is to say South Korea, Russia and China, who had in fact made all of this possible. Second thought that I have is that Trump needed very badly to have some kind of success after the number of problems he has created for himself in terms of his allies in Europe, in Canada, in Mexico. He has started so many conflicts, including with China on the question of tariffs, etc., that he needed some sort of success story. Now my third thought is that Trump's primary concern at this moment is he's completely focused on getting re-elected. And everything that he does is actually directed at the domestic support base of the far right that he has, which he's trying to expand. And it is true that that, lately, that base is much larger than the one he was able to tap at the time of the elections. And that is what the main concern here is for him, so that this plays very well because he talks about how he is going to bring the soldiers back, how he is a man who wants to make peace, he wants to de-escalate and so on and so forth. So there are three or four quite different things going on there. The winner in all of this is, of course, North Korea and even more so perhaps South Korea. For North Korea, the great victory is that the President of the United States met on equal terms unconditionally with the leader of North Korea, Chairman Kim. This is quite extraordinary. And they issued a declaration, which again affirms that the two will move towards eventual peace, eventual denuclearization through a process in which each side will match whatever the other side does. So that is going to be reciprocal, etc. So it isn't as if North Korea has given anything. So this is, for both sides, this is very important. For North Korea, it is very important to start this process because a North Korea desperately needs some economic relief because sanctions are hurting a great deal. North Korea wants to become, to get itself integrated in the economic structure of the Eurasian landmass that is developing and pursue the policies that I once discussed on NewsClick about a month ago and what they are looking for actually is an eventual denuclearization with a guarantee from a five-power guarantee which will include Japan as well as South Korea, not to speak of China and Russia and so on. But that will be eventual. The point is to start this process which will give North Korea some relief and also the opportunity to pursue a much more comprehensive policy with South Korea towards demilitarization, towards integration, etc. and towards essentially what is the Putin plan or the integration of the Koreas in a much larger plan. So North Korea wants that period of relief in which it can proceed to do those things. And earlier in the last time we had a discussion with NewsClick, you mentioned how President Moon of South Korea now has a much stronger hand than because the previous government has been discredited and stuff. But if you look at, say, President Kim Dae-jung in the late 90s and 2000s and his sunshine policy, he was not able to take that forward because of a particular American stance. So what specific situation in the United States and in South Korea is giving President Moon a much more stronger hand right now as opposed to say... One is that the opposition is much weaker at that time. But above all, it is really the rise of China to the eminence that it has risen to as well as the very, very comprehensive strategic alliance between Russia and China. And South Korea's decision, which goes far beyond President Moon, to in fact seek an integration into that, a sort of trans-Korea railways getting integrated into trans-Siberian railways and all of those various processes of economic integration. Japan is now in a position at a point where it has to make up its mind. Its economy is stagnating very bad. It will probably not move very far into this integration while Abe is in power. But it is now very much tempted by the offer from Russia and China that not only the communications networks but also gas and oil pipelines will go all the way through the Koreas into Japan. And Japan thus gets a direct access to the Eurasian markets all the way to Spain. So Japan is now in a much, is very different position economically. It is of course in the military alliance very much tied up with the United States. But economically its position is softening. But it's above all the power, the economic power. And I think the President or Chairman Kim is much more willing to relax the economic structure of North Korea for this integration. And that's where I think probably the Chinese influence also comes in. So the decision has been made to take official level talks forward. I think Mike Pompeo and the North Korean officials will be taking it forward. But considering the nature of the US establishment, which is both the Republicans and the Democrats have been very critical of this move. And I think even earlier instances where discussions happened, I think have again broken down at the level of the establishment level. So does the US establishment and although it's not a unitary structure, have any incentive to really take this forward much? Because a lot of official declarations even between the period from the end of April to May also ended up actually making the situation worse. My sense is that if it doesn't go forward at least on the surface of it, if it doesn't go forward, Trump actually loses face. Having taken this unilateral initiative so that he has the support from Pompeo and that wing of his administration, there are people, you know, Bolton and so on and the other side. So it is a very driven administration and you don't know what is coming next. And Trump himself is so impulsive. So I would actually say that the opposition from either the Democrats or even the Republicans doesn't really matter all that much. Trump is very much on his own. He has never relied on the two-party structures in Washington. He relishes the idea of being above them all and he relishes the idea of contrariness and all of that. So long as this plays well with his constituencies. So just in order to save his face and say, look, I'm doing all this to Europe and Canada and China because I'm strong and I want America to be first. But not because I'm a belligerent. I can make peace with the worst enemy that we have. I'm a perfectly reasonable person. So this is a self-presentation and for that self-presentation, he needs some progress and that suits North Korea and the Koreas perfectly well. I also think that the Koreas will keep flattering. You know, we will have statements from President Moon and so on. That will just, and as you saw, at one point, Trump had cancelled that and President Moon flew into Washington and indeed, leave until he had persuaded to carry on. So that sort of thing will also go on there. But so you do think that the process will primarily be driven by the Koreas in the coming months and maybe next year or so? Wait, I don't know. You know, if I would use the word process, I don't think there is a real process there. What it is, is opening up some space in which they will grant to Trump the idea that he's a great statesman. He's doing that and the other. They will hold all those meetings and all that. So on the choreography, there will be a great deal of emphasis, but they understand as much as, you know, we understand that substantively, it's not going to go very far because the primary interest of the entire national security apparatus in the United States is on keeping both a nuclear posture and a very high level of the cutting edge weapon systems on the good in South Korea as in Japan. And the idea that Japan might become independent of the United States and start integrating with Russia and China is nightmare. And so substantively, that is the reality. But in terms of the choreography of it, I think some of it may very well go on for a year. So a long-term demilitarization is still quite a distance away is what you would be suggesting. Distance if it's coming at all, you know. So far as demilitarization of the United States, you see the beauty of it is that so long as some kind of show is going on with the United States, North and South can move on the peace declaration that came out of their summit, which was much more substantial. It was about three times as long declaration as the one that has come out to Trump's summit. And there are very concrete steps that they have committed themselves to. And they can carry on with that. They can have a peace agreement, but obviously they cannot have an official declaration of war. Because you know, I mean, South Korea is in a very strange position. On the one hand, it is one of the world's leading industrial powers and one of the most dynamic ones. Unlike Europe and the United States, it's not as stagnating the economy. It's a very dynamic one. It's one of the major ones. And at the same time, it's the colony of the United States. It's an occupied one. So even just legally, the two Koreas cannot bring that war to an end until the US is a party to it. But they can do everything else, which will amount essentially to that and then carry on with the rest of the processes. For one thing, if South Korea can start delivering real economic relief to North Korea, if China can do it legally, it has been doing it otherwise. But if they can actually do it, then that process can begin very fast. And I think China has already indicated that trade relations should resume and North Korea has already lived up to its promises. Yeah. The fact that here I don't hear China is not a myth in terms of symbolic. In fact, China is a party to that war. They lost a million lives for Korea. So they're actually a party to that war and bringing it to some sort of an end is also something important for them, or to protect North Korea as much as they can. So actually, also moving to China right now, I mean, Trump administration has been quoting China to ensure that this peace process goes smoothly. At the same time, there is also the status policy that the US is all about to impose status, I think. The latest news says that the substantial very heavy tariffs are on the way, although the summit went on successfully. So the question is actually, what is the logic behind this process? Because there's a lot of confusion even over the tariffs on the EU and Mexico and Canada too. But you and the United States and China have such a powerful, shall we say, relationships in terms of production and markets. So what exactly is the logic of this process actually? Look, as of now, China has a trade surplus with the US in the magnitude of close to $400 billion a year. Even if the US imposes all the tariffs that they are talking about, that comes to $15 to $16 billion. So it makes no dent. It has no material meaning. He is talking, he has picked up this big fight with Canada unilaterally, absolutely knowing what he was doing, insulting Trudeau personally in ways. But the tariffs, again, if you include services and everything, the United States actually runs trade surplus with Canada. So tariffs on Europe and so on. I think it is very largely showmanship. Again, speaking to its own support base in the country, because he has said from the beginning, it was one of the big things for him to say all these countries of the world are exploiting us. They are just milking us like a cow, etc. I am going to put them in their place, this, that and the other and so on. So it is all this symbolic stuff that he is doing. With China, the US in fact doesn't know what to do, because yes, China is very dependent on the US, but US is just as dependent on China. China can retaliate. I don't believe they will retaliate very much. They will see that it is between domestic politics and personal megalomania. It is this sort of thing, nothing very serious in long-term saying, and China doesn't want to get into kind of trade war or anything like that. They will even concede some of the things that these people are saying and so on in order to carry on with the policy that they need to pursue. So I think this is really playing to the galleries. And China has the big enemy in their entire propaganda. China is taking away the jobs from the US workers. So I am going to fix China. So there is all of this business of the North, the naval blockade or whatever you want to call it, around China. So I think it is very largely that sort of thing. I don't think there is a very serious policy consideration that has gone into any of this. Thank you very much, Professor Emerson, for talking to us. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching.