LA Times (May 15)
“There is a lesson for Trump in the North’s sudden change of tune…. Kim remains an unpredictable figure, and it is way too soon for Trump to boast about his succeeding where his predecessors have failed. And don’t rush to make room in the Oval Office for that Nobel Peace Prize.”
Tags: Boast, Kim, Lesson, Nobel Peace Prize, North Korea, Predecessors, Trump, Unpredictable
Business Times (March 28)
Kim Jong Un’s visit to Beijing “is only the latest sign of moving geopolitical plates over the Korean stand-off. Following spiralling tensions in the peninsula in 2017 over the North’s nuclear weapons and missile programmes, 2018 has brought unexpected, and what could yet prove remarkable, diplomatic respite that has seen a mini-rapprochement between North and South.”
Tags: Beijing, Diplomatic, Geopolitical, Kim, Korea, Missiles, Nuclear weapons, Rapprochement, Stand-off, Tensions
Wall Street Journal (March 27)
“North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid a surprise visit to China this week, in his first known foreign trip since taking power in late 2011.” With upcoming U.S. and South Korean summits approaching, “analysts say the trip appears to be an effort to mend fences with Beijing, as Washington stakes out a tougher line on denuclearization talks planned for May.”
Tags: Analyst, China, Denuclearization, Kim, North Korea, South Korea, Summits, U.S.
USA Today (March 8)
“Chances are slim that anything has changed, but Trump is right to agree to meet. We have to talk.” Still, “most of this seems to be too good to be true…. Trump is to be credited for his effective international sanctions campaign against North Korea, but it is very hard to believe that it has brought Pyongyang to its knees so quickly. Nor is it credible that Kim has turned into a nice guy so fast.”
Harvard Gazette (January 18)
“What’s new in the current phase of the ongoing North Korean nuclear crisis is the Kim regime’s early stage capability to put the continental U.S. at risk…. North Korea is no longer viewed mainly as a threat to U.S. allies and interests in Northeast Asia. If diplomatic efforts collapse, we’re likely to see a dramatic increase in U.S. military pressure on North Korea, with the goal of compelling the regime to rapidly denuclearize.”
Tags: Allies, Capability, Continental U.S., Denuclearize, Diplomatic efforts, Kim, Military pressure, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Nuclear crisis, Regime, Risk, Threat
Washington Post (January 3)
“At this moment in time, Kim Jong Un is acting like a more mature person than the president of the United States…. It looks more and more dubious that Trump’s national security advisers know how to persuade him not to stumble his way into a conflict with North Korea. And Trump’s inability to coerce North Korea into giving up its nuclear weapons will only cause him to make even more outlandish threats.”
Tags: Advisers, Conflict, Kim, Mature, North Korea, Nuclear weapons, Outlandish, Stumble, Threats, U.S.
Bloomberg (October 18)
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is only 33, which explains a lot. Exile isn’t a realistic option. “Kim needs strategies for hanging on to power for 50 years or more. That’s a tall order, but it helps us understand that his apparently crazy tactics are probably driven by some very reasonable calculations, albeit selfish and evil ones.”
Tags: Crazy, Evil, Exile, Kim, North Korea, Reasonable, Selfish, Tactics
The Bangkok Post (September 14)
“The North Korean ‘crisis’ of recent months is largely an invented one.” Little has changed. “The probability that North Korea would fire a nuclear-tipped missile at the United States was” and remains, “essentially zero.” Given “the undeniable reality of mutual deterrence, the North Korean ‘crisis’ of 2017 can most accurately be seen as a media puppet show put on by Chairman Kim and President Trump for their own public relations purposes. Nonetheless, it’s a dangerous play.”
Tags: Crisis, Dangerous, Invented, Kim, Media puppet, Missile, Mutual deterrence, North Korea, Nuclear, Trump, U.S., Undeniable
New York Times (September 4)
“What does Kim Jong-un want?” That is the question that still plagues intelligence officials. “Six years after Mr. Kim took power and began executing those who challenged his rule…there is no issue that confounds analysts more than the motives of a 33-year-old dictator whose every move seems one part canny strategy, one part self-preservation, and one part nuclear narcissism.”
Tags: Canny, Challenge, Dictator, Executions, Intelligence, Kim, Motives, Narcissism, Nuclear, Power, Self-preservation, Strategy
The Economist (September 2)
“After pausing his missile tests just long enough for America’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, to say that Mr Kim was showing ‘restraint’, and for Mr Trump himself to claim to have Mr Kim’s ‘respect’, North Korea’s dictator unleashed three short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan.” Then Mr Kim shot an intermediate-range missile over Hokkaido, leaving many on edge. Despite this menace, it remains “striking that in Japan and South Korea, many fear Mr Trump’s unpredictability even more than Mr Kim’s.”
Tags: Hokkaido, Kim, Missile tests, North Korea, Respect, Restraint, Sea of Japan, South Korea, Tillerson, Trump, U.S., Unpredictability
