Moon Chung In as an unofficial adviser and spokesperson for the views of the Moon administration on relations with North Korean has to be optimistic about the failure of the Hanoi negotiations, because the fate of the Moon administration is intimately tied up with improving relations and economic ties with the North. Apparently, he is not ready to admit what a train wreck Trump, Bolton and Pompeo carried out. Choi Son Hui, Deputy Foreign Minister of North Korea said yesterday the talks were all but dead. Among the Deputy Foreign Minister Choi's statements presented on the March 15 Channel A News Top Ten broadcast in video out takes were: (1) "North Korea has no desire to capitulate to US demands;" (2) "The US squandered a golden opportunity;" (3) "We're not thinking of this kind of negotiations;" and (4) "We have decided negotiations to denuclearize with the US are over."
The only thing absent from the pronouncements were criticisms of President Trump. So it is suggested that what remains of the mythical "good relationship" between the two leaders, might allow the possibility of renewed negotiations. The optimists have to hang their hat somewhere because this is a devastating blow for the South Korean administration. Attempts by South Korean diplomats to ingratiate themselves with Stephen Biegun's working group and it's all or nothing approach, have the appearance of unsightly groveling while the US follows what is essentially the "Libyan" regime change model with North Korea. Because of the US all or nothing approach with no sanctions relief or waivers to the bitter end, South Korea has next to nothing to offer in an approach as intermediary, while economic conditions worsen in North Korea.
Maybe South Korean President Moon Jae In can pull a rabbit out of a hat? From Moon Chung In's opinion in Foreign Affairs, The Next Stage of the Korean Peace Process :
Speaking anonymously, a senior State Department official now claimed that “nobody in the administration advocates a step-by-step approach. In all cases, the expectation is a complete denuclearization of North Korea as a condition for . . . all the other steps being taken.” The Moon government’s ability to make a deal between the parties, and to advance parallel processes, will be critically hampered if the Trump administration now rejects a step-by-step process out of hand.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2019-03-14/next-stage-korean-peace-process
While the Blue House is not taking Choi's statements as the definitive indicator of no possibility of further negotiations, that possibility hangs by unlikely threads. The first according to Moon Chung In is that the US needs to demonstrate flexibility toward North Korea and toward South Korean joint economic overtures with North Korea such as Kumgansang and Kaseong. Otherwise South Korea has no leverage. The US has stated repeatedly that isn't going to happen. In fact sanctions are closing in on North Korea, foreign revenues are drying up and food is in scarce supply. Humanitarian efforts such as the public health anti TB efforts in North Korea are even being shut down. Discussion of more sanctions is counterproductive according to Moon, but everyday, we hear Bolton and a coterie of demagogues in the Congress either initiating or threatening more sanctions. This is little more than a regime change policy.
Secondly, Moon says the smallest disputes now can result in disaster. Yet the largest dispute has already happened with no reasonable prospect of compromise on the US side. That fundamental dispute concerns whether the all or nothing approach taken by the US side or the step by step, phased trust building approach, with simultaneous mutual concessions, favored by four of the six parties involved in negotiations in the past, is going to prevail. That dispute has not advanced one step since Singapore due to US dissembling and intransigence.
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