Trump, Lacking Leverage Over North Korea, Takes Aim at South Instead

Adding to that, Mr. Kim’s decision to travel to Beijing to meet with Mr. Xi before his planned summit meetings with the South Korean and American presidents was a brilliant maneuver, analysts said.

By choosing Beijing for his first trip abroad as leader, Mr. Kim recommitted North Korea to the traditional — yet much frayed — Communist alliance with China. At the same time, Mr. Kim’s visit helped China reassert its role in diplomacy around denuclearizing North Korea, a process that has been dominated by South Korea and the United States in recent months. If China’s role on the Korean Peninsula grows bigger, it strengthens North Korea’s leverage in talks and helps China as well if a trade war with the United States comes to pass, said Professor Shim.

Mr. Kim’s meeting with Mr. Xi has already complicated Mr. Trump’s calculations.

China’s state news media reported that Mr. Kim had called for “phased, synchronized” moves toward denuclearizing his country — the same approach the North insisted on in past negotiations with Washington. In those talks, the North said it would take only incremental steps toward giving up its nuclear program, beginning with a freeze, and demanded that the United States offer simultaneous incentives. Those past discussions all eventually collapsed as Washington and Pyongyang accused each other of reneging on agreements.

Mr. Kim’s call for a phased approach raised the possibility of drawn out and uncertain negotiations, dimming the hopes for the so-called Libyan model of rapid dismantlement, which Mr. Trump and his new pick for national security adviser, John R. Bolton, prefer.

A key problem for Mr. Trump is that South Korea sides with China in arguing that the Libyan model is unrealistic, championing an “action-for-action” phased approach for denuclearization. When Mr. Xi’s envoy, Yang Jiechi, visited Seoul this week, South Korea and China agreed to cooperate for a peaceful resolution of the North Korean crisis. On Friday, a senior aide for Mr. Moon told reporters that the North’s nuclear weapons program, which has been developing over the past 25 years, could not be dismantled “like you turn off your TV by pulling out the electricity cord.”

Lee Jong-seok, a former South Korean unification minister, said, “The key will be how to persuade North Korea to take a couple or few early concrete steps early — for instance, measures concerning its nuclear test site or its ICBM production facilities — that would help convince the Americans that it is sincere about denuclearization.”

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