China’s Role in North Korea Nuclear and Peace Negotiations

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Titel
China’s Role in North Korea Nuclear and Peace Negotiations
Verfasserangabe
USIP SENIOR STUDY GROUP FINAL REPORT
Medienart
Sprache
Verlag
Ort
Washington, DC
Jahr
Umfang
32 p.
ISBN13
978-1-60127-763-3
Schlagwort
Annotation
his is the second in the Senior Study Group (SSG) series of USIP reports examining China’s influence on conflicts around the world. A group of fifteen experts met from September to December 2018 to assess China’s interests and influence in bringing about a durable settlement of the North Korean nuclear crisis. This report provides recommendations for the United States to assume a more effective role in shaping the future of North Korea in light of China’s role and interests. Unless otherwise sourced, all observations and conclusions are those of SSG members.
Executive Summary

For decades, North Korea’s nuclear program has ranked among the top security challenges for the United States. This threat increased in urgency following a sharp uptick in North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests in 2016 and especially with its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in July 2017. Then, in June 2018 in Singapore, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met for the first time, marking a new chapter in U.S. engagement with North Korea. In a joint statement, the two sides agreed to work toward a new bilateral relationship, the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” and a “lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” as well as to cooperate on recovering the remains of Americans who had died in the Korean War.

Since the diplomatic opening created by the Singapore summit, the key challenge for the United States and its partners has been to develop a negotiation process capable of sustaining momentum toward those objectives. This has proved difficult, and negotiations are at a stalemate. The two sides were most recently unable to come to an agreement at Trump and Kim’s second meeting, which was held in February 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Washington and Pyongyang are divided over the definition of denuclearization and how to sequence steps toward achieving denuclearization, creating a new bilateral relationship, and establishing a peace regime. North Korea has called for a “phased and synchronous” approach in which reciprocal concessions are traded between Washington and Pyongyang in a step-by-step manner. In Hanoi, Kim demanded the lifting of five of the eleven U.N. sanctions imposed on the regime, which focus on the civilian economy, in exchange for dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear complex, an offer Trump was unwilling to accept. Since the Hanoi summit, Washington has said that it rejects an “incremental” approach and instead expects both a “big deal” in which North Korea denuclearizes “fully, finally and verifiably” in return for complete sanctions relief as well as progress on the other pillars identified in the Singapore statement.
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USIP SENIOR STUDY GROUP FINAL REPORT