The Tensions and Political Staretegy in North Korea-US Relations 

Donald Trump has been a keen user of social media platforms, especially Twitter, even before he became the 45th president of the United States of America. Since Donald Trump has been inaugurated as the head of state of the US in January 2017 the president has tweeted an enormous number of times. In his first year as the new chief of state of the United States of America he has tweeted 2568 times and influences some 55.6 million followers. The very same people, who follow the 45th president of the US on Twitter, are manipulated by Trump´s tweets, which often contain false information about sensitive political and corporative topics.

Referring to the US-North Korea topic, Trump has had several arguments and disputes with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un on Twitter. In September 2017, a few days after a successful missile launch by North Korea, Trump called the North Korean leader “rocketman” and Kim Jong-un angrily responded by calling Trump a dotard, which is “a person in a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness”. A political clash with mutual personal insults and defamations followed, which ended in growing political tensions between the already quarrelling countries. After this Twitter/media debate between the two countries´ leaders the situation seemed to ease, when a possible summit at the highest diplomatic level – a rendezvous between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un – was held out in prospect by North Korean officials and in succession by Kim Jong-un himself in March 2018.

The summit, which was held on June 12, 2018 was a major step towards the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States of America and North Korea as the US and the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) agreed on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in return for the lifting of sanctions, which have been imposed on North Korea for several years. The United States was granted the retrieval of US military personnel´s remains that have had to linger in North Korea after the Korean War

U.S. Republican politicians showed gratitude towards the overall outcome of the summit, which makes future economic and military cooperation – now already starting to happen between South and North Korea – between the US and the DPRK possible. Member of the Senate Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado, outlines on his Twitter account, that the summit-agreement on denuclearization approved by Kim Jong-un is an important goal for the US. Republicans also stated, that working towards the mentioned goal is a priority aim. U.S. Democrats were more cautious when looking into the summit´s outcome. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated, that he is not happy with how Trump “handled” Kim Jong-un since he now has the international legitimation for his country he always aimed for. Other Democrats shared Schumer´s concerns and are willing to imply a harsher way of solving the North Korea nuclear-issue.

Role of China

The People's Republic of China, a neighbouring country of North Korea, has played and will always play a prominent role when it comes to the conflict between the United States and the DPRK. Not only has China been host to several summits - such as six rounds of the so called Six-party talks (negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue and the relations between North Korea and the US, that took place in Beijing, China as of 2003, attended by China, the USA, Russia, North Korea, South Korea and Japan) - that were held to resolve the denuclearization issue of the Korean Peninsula, but China is also the only remaining ally, which North Korea has.

China, as the DPRK´s main and only ally, has provided North Korea with huge energy and food supplies over the last few decades and is by far the biggest partner in trade of the DPRK (almost 60% of the overall trade happens with China). Especially, when the DPRK was hit hard by the sanctions imposed by Western countries with the US leading the way, China helped out its Southern ally once again. Although, China mostly goes along with every other country in the UN Security Council, when a new round of sanctions is imposed on North Korea, it tries to keep its relationship with North Korea balanced. The worst possible case for the PRC is either a military escalation of the smoldering dispute between the US and North Korea or even worse a regime change in the DPRK. This case would have a catastrophic impact on China, since the so called buffer-state to the US-controlled South of the Korean Peninsula would be gone at a blow.

Attempts of China to serve as a mediator between the United States and North Korea are made frequently and have led to several landmark summits held to ease the conflict. Not only was the DPRK removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism of the United States of America in 2008 but it was also removed from the Trading with the Enemy Act. In 2009, when the Six-party talks were to be discontinued because of the launching of a missile by the North Korean government, China revealed its disappointment towards the DPRK, since negotiations were made impossible and joint agreements were dashed.

Ever since then the role of China became more and more insignificant, since the Chinese government started to condem the actions of the DPRK and relations between the previous allies began to cool. Therefore, influence on the DPRK´s government, respectively the DPRK´s Supreme Leader, was limited, which the United States determined uneasily. The milestone summit between the US and North Korean leader in Singapore in June 2018 made China's role clear again. The country aims for peaceful coexistence of the US and North Korea, so that trade with the isolated Democratic People's Republic of North Korea becomes possible again and military tensions decrease step by step to re-establish a stable East Asia.

Although, the impetus to hold the summit came from the Trump administration in Washington, China's diplomats worked hard in petto to achieve the participation of North Korea in the summit, which then turned out to be the most successful meeting between presidents of the US and North Korea since the founding of the DPRK in 1948 and which led to the signing of a historical agreement, which includes denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the establishing of a stable peace regime between both Koreas. Relations between China and North Korea are still on a cool basis, but once again the PRC has shown its tremendous mediation qualities, when it comes to negotiation efforts between the United States of America and North Korea. China, as the big ideological and economic partner has been and will be North Korea´s voice when wanting to communicate with global superpowers, especially the US.

North Korean political strategy and its impact on relations with US

When Kim Jong-un became the new head of state, respectively the “Supreme Leader” of the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea in 2011, the political strategy which was implied to communicate and negotiate with the United States of America faced a change.

Kim Jong-un started to swear off isolationism and moreover began to engage in negotiations with the US, which peaked in the June 2018 summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore. The Supreme Leader of the DPRK is willing to negotiate with his nemesis the United States, but is not willing to completely give up its nuclear power, which makes finding a solution for the North Korea – US dispute, that has been around for more than seven decades hard, if not impossible.

Kim has not only changed his opinion about relations with the US but also about the “military first” approach implied by his father Kim Jong-il. He now follows a dual strategy to optimize the DPRK´s nuclear programme and to revive North Korea´s economy that at the moment is nearly inexistent.

Although, the DPRK´s leader tries to achieve his objectives, which are mostly of economic and partly of military interests, he also wants to keep up his nuclear programme, which ended many negotiations between high-ranking diplomats of the US and North Korea and led to several setbacks, such as the 2015 round of sanctions imposed on North Korea by the United States of America, following another test of a ballistic missile, possibly able to carry nuclear warheads.

Like his father and grand-father Kim Jong-un has applied several different tactics to deal with the US and to better the relations with North Korea´s number one enemy. Not only has he engaged in nuclear and military brinkmanship, with the launching of several ballistic missiles, such as the launching of a KN-22 intercontinental missile in November 2017 , but he has also attempted to make use of negotiation regimes, in which other parties, for instance China or Russia have put pressure on the United States of America to finally find a solution for the crisis, which often helped the DPRK and led to the signing of several joint agreements, which included the suspension of the implied sanctions in return for complete denuclearization of the DPRK. However, North Korea abided to none of the signed joint agreements to the present day, which weakened its negotiation position.

Through the use of negotiation regimes, such as the Six-party talks hosted by China, North Korea has achieved a lot for itself for decades with nothing that was given in return by the DPRK´s political elite, though, when Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States of America this changed. When meeting Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June 2018 he requested complete denuclearization in return for the repeal of imposed sanctions and the possible resumption of economic collaboration. After the signing of a joint statement, respectively a joint agreement, by the leaders of both countries relations have begun to worsen, as North Korea once again is not willing to implement, what is demanded by the US and several other Western countries, namely complete denuclearization of the DPRK.

Although, the Trump administration has tried to distance itself from the “North Korea issue” diplomats of both, the DPRK and the US, are preparing for another summit between the two countries that will likely take place in the beginning of 2019, as the foreign ministry, respectively Mike Pompeo the minister of foreign affairs let the public know. A 2nd summit will focus on the progress of the demanded denuclearization of North Korea and how to control and supervise the denuclearization process, but also on the repeal of sanctions and an economic revival of the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea.

Conclusion

Since Donald John Trump has become president of the United States of America the method of communication with the US´ nemesis the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea has changed. Not only did the rhetoric of both countries´ leaders become harsher, but North Korea and the United States have also tried to get together at the negotiation table (cf. Singapore Summit) and figure out, how to solve the 70-year-old dispute between the two countries. Progress has been made ever since Trump has become the new head of state of the US, but a war between North Korea and the United States has never been as close either. The answer to the first central question concerning the foreign policy topic How does the new way of communication between the two leaders Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un (Twitter and US-North Korea summit) affect political day-to-day business in the US is that political day-to-day business in the United States has not faced a big change because of the recent shift regarding the means of communication used between the two states. Foreign policy, however, was affected in a great way, as major breakthroughs, which helped and will help the further improvement of relations, were achieved i.e. when looking into the Singapore summit´s outcome or the improvement of relations between South and North Korea, which have been made possible because of brilliant achievements by US diplomats and politicians, respectively Donald J. Trump.

When talking about the second central question of this academic dissertation, “In which ways does China figure prominently when it comes to the US - North Korean relations?”, It has to be said, that diplomatic top performances have prevented the two countries from actually carrying out any acts of war, that would have impacted the whole world. These diplomatic efforts have been made by North Korean and American diplomats, but also and foremost by Chinese ones, who have served as mediators for almost seven decades being the host of summits and talks (cf. Six-party talks) and being middlemen to initiate negotiations. China wants to prevent South East Asia from a possible war and it also tries to keep North Korea as a buffer state to the US-dominated South Korea and therefore it does not spare any effort to achieve reconciliation between the two nemesis, though China supports the DPRK secretly with providing food, energy and little economic support, which is not seen with pleasure by the US but is tolerated.

Nevertheless, even though there are still tensions, Kim Jong-un the 3rd Supreme leader of the Stalinist North Korea has chosen the path of reconciliation and his applied political strategy to deal with the United States of America is the use of negotiation regimes to prevent his country and his own leadership from collapsing. The United States as a counter-part of the isolated North Korea accepts the way the DPRK has been acting lately and is ready and willing to negotiate different topics such as denuclearization, sanction-repeal and economic revival in order to ensure a peaceful coexistence of the US, North Korea and South Korea. All of those steps have been taken, but a final solution to the conflict has still not been reached, as can be inferred by Donald Trump´s statement made after the Singapore summit, “I look forward to the day when I can take the sanctions off North Korea.”, which answers the third central question regarding the foreign policy topic How does the new political strategy applied by North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un impact relations with the United States of America? Clearly: ever since Kim Jong-un has applied his new political strategy and tactic relations are getting better, but peaceful coexistence is still afar.