Will North Korea conduct a nuclear or ballistic missile test in order to put meat on the bones of its escalating rhetoric? It’s an increasing possibility.
This week marked Pyongyang’s coordinated shift away from tentative compromise and back to the old blackmail and brinkmanship. First, we saw Kim Jong Un’s regime cut off a communications hotline with Seoul. Then, on Thursday, North Korea launched a scathing attack on the Trump administration’s diplomacy.
“The question is whether there will be a need to keep the relations of Singapore’s handshake,” said foreign minister Ri Son Gwon, “as we see that there is nothing of practical improvement to be made in the DPRK-U.S. relations even though our supreme leadership and the U.S. president are maintaining their personal relations.”
Ri is referring here to the June 2018 Singapore summit between Kim and President Trump.
The foreign minister wasn’t done. North Korea, he warned, “will never again provide the U.S. chief executive with any package to be used as material for his achievement hype gratis.” Ri also offered a familiar attack on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “nonsensical remarks that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is still a secure goal.” Pyongyang blames Pompeo for holding back Trump from making more concessions.
If and when a new nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile test occurs, the North Koreans will attach personal blame to Pompeo in order to avoid offending Trump’s ego.
This rhetoric shouldn’t be viewed as standard-fare hermit kingdom hyperbole.
For one, it is noticeable that Ri delivered the foreign policy rebuke, and Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong publicly directed the suspension of the Seoul-Pyongyang hotline. Both figures are close to Kim Jong Un and, at least in Ri’s case, reflect the hard-liner bloc in the North Korean inner circle. Taken together, their actions must be considered as reflective of Kim’s interest in increasing tensions with Washington.
Why the escalation?
Kim is frustrated that he has been unable to extract American or U.N.-related sanctions relief. The gambit to manipulate Trump into giving free concessions hasn’t worked out. And whatever Chinese and Russian smuggling Kim benefits from, it’s simply not enough to keep his economy rolling and ensure the elites can access the higher-value goods to which they’ve become accustomed. For a leader who is unusually paranoid, even by North Korean standards, this diplomatic inertia is a recipe for regime destabilization.
In turn, this week’s actions are warning shots across South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s and Trump’s metaphorical bows. If Kim doesn’t receive the kind of outreach from Trump he wants, which he likely won’t, his hard-liner consigliere Kim Yong Chol will whisper in his ear: “It’s time for new ICBM tests, Mr. Chairman.”
