The Kim-meets-Moon franchise is starting to show its age. The first meeting between North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, held last April, was genuinely momentous: Lavishly staged at the DMZ that cleaves Korea in two, it even included an impromptu step into North Korean territory by President Moon.
The sequel, a hastily arranged confab in May, held again at the DMZ, could not match the first for sheer theater. But at least it had its reasons for existing. The meeting happened just as President Donald Trump had temporarily scuttled his own planned tête-à-tête with Kim in Singapore, and the leaders of the Koreas met to get the U.S.-North Korea process back on track. It worked: A couple of weeks later, Trump met with Kim.
Tuesday, President Moon will travel to Pyongyang for his third summit with Kim. This meeting comes as the U.S.-North Korea talks are basically stalled.
As expected, little progress has been made on North Korea denuclearizing itself, and China has relented on the economic pressure it had earlier brought to bear on Pyongyang—pressure that had played a big part in compelling Kim to the negotiating table in the first place.
In a sense, Moon comes to Pyongyang as a supplicant. Politically, he has the most invested in keeping relations with North Korea cordial. Moon was elected (with less than 42 percent of the vote in a multi-candidate race) as an unapologetic supporter of détente with the North. He has followed through as president: it was Moon who spurred the North Korea love-fest at the Pyeongchang Olympics this winter. And it was his administration that delivered the fateful letter from Kim Jong-un to Donald Trump that spurred their on-again, off-again bromance.
But Moon has been struggling politically. His approval rating is wilting, having this month fallen below 50 percent for the first time. That has more to do with domestic and economic problems than North-South relations, but it still puts the heat on him to come home from Pyongyang with some sort of “victory.” Moon also wants to encourage the Trump-Kim relationship and probably reasons that a fruitful meeting this week will do that.
Which means that Kim Jong-un has the whip hand. Still in possession of nuclear weapons, he feels secure. And even better, he knows that Moon will be eager to make a deal. So look for Kim to push for serious economic concessions from the South. The most likely scenario is the re-opening of the Kaesong Joint Industrial Complex, an industrial park where North Korean laborers serve South Korean companies. (The lion’s share of their “wages” go to the regime, by the way.) Kim may also push for aid. In response, he’ll likely agree to a cosmetic concession, such as a continued pause in missile tests. More meaningful concessions like, say, shuttering North Korea’s vast gulag, will almost certainly remain off the table.
