Six Party Talks Veteran in Panmunjeom

Song Kim a career diplomat, former US Ambassador to S.Korea, current US Ambassador to the Philippines, and former US representative to the Six Party talks went to Panmunjeom, today, to talk to the North Korean delegation to get ready for the Singapore summit with Trump.

An interesting historical note: "Kim’s father was implicated in the abduction of Kim Dae-jung during the Park Chung-hee administration while serving as a minister to Japan." So it looks like the Trump administration has to go back to the democratic well at the State Department to find people competent enough to negotiate an agreement. He has prior experience with the North Korean diplomat Choi Seon Hwi, (a woman) who rose to international notoriety last week by calling Pence a stupid blockhead.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/587486/who-is-sung-kim-new-us-ambassador-to-phl/story/

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/481417.html

Heard Gordon Chang claim on Fox News that Moon is pro-North Korean, (jong buk), and wants to unify the Korean peninsula under the North's leadership. Chang of course insisted that the Chinese are playing a negative role in the diplomatic maneuvering with North Korea, and that China and North Korea need to be "separated." His contentions are spurious and misleading. Kim could have never been brought to the table without the initiatives of Moon, a Korean nationalist, along with the major sanctions imposed by China. Chang is a self serving malevolent right wing fanatic, with an incurable bias against China. We are still waiting for the "coming collapse of China" predicted by Chang seventeen years ago. Don't hold your breath.

While the diplomatic maneuvering proceeds in the stop and go pattern it has demonstrated, in the relative rush to a June 12 summit, the North Koreans have been remarkably symmetrical in their recent statements, two officials from the US go on needlessly and provocatively with their inappropriate Libyan model threats, and the North responds with two officials from their foreign ministry who make disparaging remarks about those US officials and communicate their own threats. Trump expresses suspicion and displeasure about Kim's second meeting with Xi at Darien, and Kim dispatches a high level official to China again, perhaps to arrange further contact and discussions with Xi. Kim Chang Seon is the name of the mover in the Secretariat, who went to China. Kim is sometimes referred to as Kim Jong Un's "butler," and is regarded as a power behind the scenes at the secretariat. Late reports are that Kim Chang Seon is flying to Singapore after his stopover in Beijing.