Chasing the denuclearisation fantasy: The US-North Korea summit ends abruptly in Hanoi

As the US-North Korea summit comes to an abrupt end, denuclearisation is a fantasy that is leaving Washington as the odd man out on the Korean Peninsula.
AAP/KCNA

Benjamin Habib, La Trobe University

Korea-watchers around the world are scrambling to tease out the meaning of the abruptly concluded US-DPRK summit in Hanoi. I want to cast a critical eye on denuclearisation itself as the framing objective of the summit negotiations.

If we step back for a moment to look at the extraordinary developments in Korean Peninsula diplomacy over the past year, we see three parties who want different things.

The Moon Jae-in administration in South Korea remembers all too well the chaos of 2017 that brought Korea to the brink of war, and sees a permanent peace regime as the most important objective of its engagement efforts.

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For their part, the North Koreans want to neutralise the military threat from the US, see sanctions lifted, and obtain economic assistance to accelerate the development of their economy. The Trump administration, and much of the broader US foreign policy establishment, remains attached to the denuclearisation of North Korea as the end game of this process.

But denuclearisation is a fantasy that is leaving Washington as the odd man out on the Korean Peninsula. The goalposts on the Korean Peninsula are changing as the momentum for inter-Korean engagement grows, while the importance of the US as the indispensable security guarantor is diminishing.

Who walked out on whom?

Like everyone else, I will be watching closely over the coming days as details begin to emerge about the sticking points that led to the abrupt conclusion of the summit.

In the lead-up to the Hanoi summit, the Trump administration did signal some flexibility on verification measures for full, independent accounting of North Korea’s nuclear program as a condition for further negotiation.

It is ironic that Trump’s apparent willingness to befriend authoritarian leaders has opened the door for negotiations for a permanent peace regime in Korea, which previous US administrations had kept quarantined behind the demand for “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” (CVID).

However, in his final press conference in Hanoi, the US president indicated that the North Korean delegation asked for too much in requesting the lifting of all economic sanctions in exchange for the shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities.

Considering the enormous pressure Trump has come under from domestic quarters not to sell out the denuclearisation agenda, there was no way the US delegation could accept those terms.

But there is another possibility. The Congressional testimony of Michael Cohen from Washington may have created fresh doubts in the minds of the North Korean delegation about Trump’s ability to deliver on a deal. It is possible that Kim Jong-un presented terms they knew the Americans could not accept, to avoid the possibility of a lame-duck deal negotiated by a compromised president.

It is important to recognise that the US and North Korea run at different political speeds. Since 1945, North Korea’s three Kims have presided through 13 US presidents. US presidents are confined to term limits and captive to the political demands of relatively short election cycles. The now extreme polarisation of American politics ensures that promises made by Trump may not be honoured by an incoming administration.

With a US presidential election looming in 2020 and widespread criticism within the American foreign policy establishment of Trump’s negotiating position, and with recurring allegations of criminality fuelling calls for his impeachment, it is understandable that the North Koreans might be cautious about making concessions.

They will remember the failure of the US Congress to ratify the Agreed Framework when President Bill Clinton was facing impeachment during the 1990s.

The denuclearisation of North Korea is a fantasy

Regardless of who blinked first, the failure to reach agreement in Hanoi further demonstrates that North Korea will never willingly denuclearise. This is not a secret. It has been obvious for more than a decade, since the failure of the Six-Party Talks. Beyond the economic sanctions regime, there is very little the US can do about it.

It bears repeating why this is the case:

1. successive US administrations have considered and rejected the use of military force against North Korea on the grounds that it poses an unacceptable risk to its ally in South Korea

2. because of the longstanding sanctions regime, the US lacks sufficient economic leverage over the DPRK to bring it to heel, even with the expansive list of goods banned from export to the North, and the expansive powers of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to restrict financial flows in and out of the DPRK

3. North Korea is adept at sanctions-busting, in spite of the squeeze being placed on the country by existing measures.

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As the shaky US-North Korea summit is set to begin, the parties must search for common interest

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Holding out for denuclearisation as an end game is an exercise in futility. It is bad policy. It unnecessarily backs the US into a corner of weakness where it cannot bring its obvious strategic and economic advantages to bear.

Denuclearisation has been the obstacle that has kept the US and North Korea at the stage of talking about talking, halting progress on other confidence-building measures that could improve the relationship and take some of the heat out of the Korean Peninsula security dilemma.

Missed opportunity for a peace settlement

The dominant school of thought in disarmament circles is that states that acquire nuclear weapons are a threat to international peace and security, and so must be prevented from doing so. This is the denuclearisation perspective that has dominated the discourse on North Korea in the US and informed the longstanding CVID policy.

There is an clear logic here that stems from the terrible and awesome destructiveness of nuclear weapons, with which few could argue. From this perspective, any negotiations with North Korea that do not result in full nuclear relinquishment will be interpreted as a sell-out.

However, there is also an obvious hypocrisy in this position (and in the nuclear non-proliferation regime more generally) given the size of the US nuclear arsenal and the deliberate ambiguity of its doctrine around nuclear first-strike. It is this hypocrisy that the DPRK exploits in its official interpretation of denuclearisation as meaning the universal relinquishment of nuclear weapons by all countries.

There is another school of thought that it is not nuclear weapons per se that represent a threat to international peace and security. Rather, it is an international environment teeming with existential threats in which states feel compelled to acquire nuclear weapons to protect themselves.

From this perspective, a peace declaration could diminish the level of insecurity that feeds the desire for nuclear proliferation. If the perception of imminent threat lessens, then the probability of nuclear weapons use in the event of conflict is also reduced.

There is space within this perspective to work towards nuclear disarmament. But that goal is one element of a bigger picture. This is the essence of the South Korean position on inter-Korean summit diplomacy, and the fading shadow of a missed opportunity in Hanoi.

These summits are part of a long-term peace-building process. Clearly, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are not on the same page in their negotiating objectives.

If US-DPRK bilateral negotiations are to continue, they are going to have to find a lowest common denominator on which they can build. Regardless of how we feel about Kim Jong-un, the political system he presides over, and the abuses of his regime, denuclearisation is never going to be the lowest common denominator upon which the US-DPRK relationship can evolve.

Benjamin Habib, Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

G20 summit bring a truce in US-China trade relations – but it’s likely to be temporary

Tony Walker, La Trobe University

The United States and China have arrived at a temporary truce in a trade conflict that was threatening to further destabilise world equity markets, entrench a global slowdown and cause more damage to a rules-based international order.

Agreement by US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to allow further negotiations before threatened tariff increases on Chinese imports come into effect is a welcome development.

However, this is a temporary respite, a short-term fix, not a long-term solution to myriad trade and other tensions that have put the US and China at odds with each other.

For their own purposes and in their own interests, Trump and Xi have come away from the Argentine capital with a deal that papers over differences that extend from China’s activities in the South China Sea to its mercantilist trade policies.

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As far as we know, China’s ruthless assertion of its sovereignty over disputed waters in the South China Sea was not a material subject for discussion in Buenos Aires except, possibly, in passing.

China’s rise and America’s relative decline ensure these global economic superpowers will continue to bump up against each other.

So, what was achieved and what are the prospects for an accord reached on the sidelines of the G20?

In their efforts to lower trade tensions and prevent a further erosion of global confidence, Trump and Xi agreed to a 90-day extension on the imposition of additional US tariffs on some US$200 billion of Chinese imports.

Trump had threatened to increase tariffs from 10% to 25% on an initial batch of Chinese imports from January 1. He had also flagged his intention to impose levies on another US$267 billion worth of imports if progress was not made in resolving broad-based trade differences.

A joint statement laid out a timeline for continuing negotiations. It reads:

Both parties agree that they will endeavour to have this transaction completed within the next 90 days. If, at the end of this period of time, the parties are unable to reach an agreement, the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent.

In return for these temporary concessions, China agreed to:

… purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries. China has agreed to start purchasing agricultural product immediately.

China also agreed to crack down on sales of Fentanyl by making it a controlled substance. The US is battling an opioid crisis in which Fentanyl is a lethal component.

In retaliation for US trade actions, China had imposed duties on US$110 billion of imports. A principal component of this is soybeans, effectively killing one of America’s more lucrative export markets.

Trump has been under huge pressure from his Mid-Western rural heartland over a collapse in the Chinese market for American agricultural products.

The two sides also agreed to address structural problems in the trading relationship. These extend to five areas – forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers, cyber intrusions and cyber theft.

These are highly complex issues and unlikely to be resolved in the short term, if at all.

In the wash-up of the Xi-Trump discussions it appears China has got more out of the deal than the US – at least for now. It has secured a stay of execution for the implementation of tariff increases and forestalled, for the time being, tariffs on an additional bloc of Chinese exports.

In return, it has agreed to buy unspecified quantities of US products and to talk about differences.

Trump’s willingness to compromise after months of bombast reflects pressures from a shellshocked grain-producing constituency and alarm on Wall Street at prospects of a full-blown trade war.

From Beijing’s perspective, China has demonstrated that its growing economic heft has enabled it to avoid the appearance of yielding to US pressure.

If not a “win-win” for China – as Chinese officials are fond of saying – it is certainly not a “lose-lose”.

In a statement at odds with months of fire-breathing rhetoric over China’s allegedly perfidious trade practices, Trump hailed his understanding with Xi. He said:

This was an amazing and productive meeting with unlimited possibilities for both the US and China.

For their part, Chinese officials were more circumspect.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the talks were conducted in a “friendly and candid atmosphere”. The presidents:

agreed that the two sides can and must get bilateral relations right… China is willing to increase imports in accordance with the needs of its domestic market and the people’s needs.

Impetus for a face-saving deal in Buenos Aires has been prompted by growing concerns about the global economy. The signs of a slowdown are clear. Trade volumes had begun to moderate in the third quarter, heightening worries of a global retrenchment.

International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde at the G20 summit.
AAP/EPA/G20 handout

On the sidelines of the G20, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, noted:

Pressures on emerging markets have been rising and trade tensions have begun to have a negative impact, increasing downside risks.

In its October Outlook statement, the IMF warned about threats to global growth due to trade disturbances.

In their final communique, G20 leaders danced around contentious issues on trade to accommodate American objections to having the word “protectionism” inserted in the document.

In the end, participants settled on the need for reform of the World Trade Organisation to describe a world trading system that is falling short of its objectives. Washington has been agitating for a review of the WTO to strengthen its dispute resolution and appeal procedures.

The US has also objected to a continuing description of China as a developing country, with concessions that enable it to take advantage of less developed country status in its access to global markets.

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On climate change, Washington separated itself from the other G20 members. All, except the US, reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement. The US announced in 2017 it was pulling out of Paris.

Foreign policy specialists will be sceptical about a de-escalation of trade hostilities given the range of issues bedevilling the US-China relationship.

Reflecting a hardening of US attitudes towards China, and in contrast to the optimism that had prevailed for much of the past two decades, Ely Ratner in Foreign Affairs notes:

Even if tariffs are put on hold, the United States will continue to restructure the US-China economic relationship through investment restrictions, export controls, and sustained law enforcement actions against Chinese industrial and cyber-espionage.

At the same time, there are no serious prospects for Washington and Beijing to resolve other important areas of dispute, including the South China Sea, human rights and the larger contest over the norms, rules and institutions that govern relations in Asia.

A stiffening view in the US towards China is shared more or less across the board. In those circumstances, a temporary ceasefire in Buenos Aires is unlikely to be sustained.

Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

After APEC, US-China tensions leave ‘cooperation’ in the cold

US Vice President Mike Pence with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden. PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and Australia’s Scott Morrison were among the leaders of the 21 economies making up APEC.
AAP/Mick Tsikas

Nick Bisley, La Trobe University

United States Vice President Mike Pence’s remarks at the end of this year’s summit season just about blasted the word “cooperation” out of the APEC acronym. Amid ill-concealed US-China tensions, it had already been looking out of place.

Pence unveiled US plans to help Australia and Papua New Guinea – APEC’s host this year – expand a military base on Manus Island, which is in PNG. In September, Australia had already announced funding for an upgrade of the facility.

Former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans famously declared in 1993 that APEC was “four adjectives in search of a noun”. As one of APEC’s founding fathers, he could be forgiven for getting the parts of speech slightly wrong.

But 25 years on, “cooperation” is looking doubtful. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum set sail in Canberra in 1989. Two former prime ministers, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, lay some claim to its parentage. APEC has grown to boast 21 member economies (where China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are listed as separate member economies).

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In his first major foreign policy test, Morrison needs to stick to the script

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APEC is part of summit season in Asia in November, and the one closest to Australia’s heart, given its origins in Canberra. Three other big set pieces are also held within this week each year and bring all the key players in the region together, ostensibly to talk about advancing cooperation, community building and grappling with common problems. Two others relate to ASEAN, the grouping of 10 South-east Asian nations – its annual summit, and the ASEAN Plus 3 meeting where they bring in South Korea, Japan and China. Then there is the East Asia Summit, which comprises the 10 ASEAN members, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the United States and Russia. These talk-fests give states and economies, great and small, the chance to advance a broad-ranging positive agenda.

But the many handshakes, photo ops and positive sounding joint-statements could not mask the reality of hardening US-China geopolitical competition. It is a cruel irony that a group of meetings created to advance cooperation became the platform for what amounted to a very public drawing of lines of great power competition.

Feelings were mixed when it was announced US President Donald Trump would go to Europe for the centenary of world war one’s truce this year, instead of Asia’s summits. The signal sent that the president does not prioritise the region is unmistakable.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison mixes exotic dress with his passion for rugby league team the Cronulla Sharks in his APEC diplomacy.

During his visit, Pence put on a stern face on US policy, and in his speech to the APEC CEO Summit he reinforced the United States’ wish to build a relationship with China, based on “fairness, reciprocity, and respect for sovereignty”. In earlier comments to the Hudson Institute he accused Beijing of stealing military blueprints, “and using that stolen technology, the Chinese Communist Party is turning ploughshares into swords on a massive scale…”.

Washington now sees itself in full spectrum competition with China for regional and global influence. Pence portrayed China as an aggressive and almost imperial power with a malign regional vision. In contrast, he emphasised that the US wanted to protect an open and rules-based system of genuine partnerships. He underscored the long-term nature of this commitment.

The problem, both for Washington and its partners, is that this new muscular approach to China is, as yet, not fully resourced, and does not align the military aspects with trade – notwithstanding the Manus announcement.

Trump’s economic nationalism jibes badly with the interests of its partners and its long term regional strategy. A free and open Indo-Pacific sits uncomfortably with America’s economic nationalism, imposing tariffs on allies and pleas for multilateral approaches being summarily dismissed.

New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden and Canada’s Justin Trudeau share a laugh as Scott Morrison and other APEC leaders look on.

At the same CEO summit, Xi Jinping gave a rare major address outside of China. Like Pence, he sought to lay out a vision for the region that presented China as a force for economic openness, integration and development.

Continuing the themes first articulated at Davos in 2017, the unstated but obvious point of contrast was with America. Xi also rebutted criticism of the Belt and Road Initiative, declaring it was neither a trap nor a geopolitical gambit but an “open platform for cooperation”. But as with his earlier efforts to paint China as a defender of economic openness, the claims remain unconvincing.

Hosting APEC in PNG was fitting, given the south-west Pacific has become a key site of US-China competition. The Manus announcement, along with another that a group of Western allies would collaborate to drive a massive electrification project in the country, gives a concrete sense of what this means for the region. As in the Cold War, when Soviet-American rivalry led to bidding wars in the developing world, today China and the US are competing for influence in the form of infrastructure and development funding.

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Pence visit reassures that the US remains committed to the Asia-Pacific

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If the speeches laid down rhetorical battle lines, APEC’s conclusion showed the consequences of this competition. For the first time in the grouping’s history, APEC members were unable to agree on the wording of a final communique. While a new Cold War is not yet here, this is another worrying step toward a serious rift in the global economy and geopolitics.

The biggest loser of the summit season is probably ASEAN. Founded in 1967 to wall off the newly independent states of south-east Asia from Cold War competition as the Vietnam war escalated, the grouping’s principal purpose has been to ensure the region does not become the wrestling mat of great power competition. It had been crucial to ensuring this goal was met in the Cold War and its aftermath. Events of this past week show it is finding that much harder to achieve as the geopolitical temperature rises.

If there were any doubts, Asia’s summit season confirms that the region has entered a new phase. Great power competition is now Asia’s most important dynamic. Even though the set piece theatre is about community building and cooperation, the reality is that China and the US have irreconcilable visions for the region and its future.

The only question is how much they are willing to pay to prevail in the contest for Asia’s future.

Nick Bisley, Head of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In his first major foreign policy test, Morrison needs to stick to the script

After a positive start, Morrison’s relations with his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo, cooled off after he suggested moving the Australian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Lukas Coch/AAP

Susan Harris Rimmer, Griffith University

Attending a global leaders summit might look easy – all interesting shirts, family-style photos and unusual handshakes – but these occasions can prove extremely difficult for leaders who focus solely on domestic politics or brand new leaders with uncertain electoral prospects.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is both.

Morrison faces a busy week of foreign policy tests in his first big moment on the global stage. He first travels to Singapore for the ASEAN and East Asia Summit, then hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s historic visit to Darwin before jetting off for the APEC Summit in Papua New Guinea on the weekend. This power week will be followed by the G20 Leaders Summit in Buenos Aires at the end of month.

This week, Morrison will have his first meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, US Vice President Mike Pence and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in addition to new (but not so new) Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

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With Bishop gone, Morrison and Payne face significant challenges on foreign policy

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So what can we expect from Morrison’s debut summit season and in particular his meetings with Xi?

Pundits have been speculating whether Morrison might try to use the August leadership spill and appointment of new Foreign Minister Marise Payne as a way of pressing the reset button on relations with China.

Payne’s recent visit to Beijing was viewed by both parties as a success, so Morrison should have a more pleasant meeting with Xi than former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull might have.

Payne’s visit to China was the first by an Australian foreign minister since Julie Bishop’s trip in 2016.
Thomas Peter/EPA

But Morrison’s first months in office show a leader who speaks without due care to the reactions of foreign governments – floating the idea of shifting the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is the most glaring example – and a leader with little political capital to spare.

He needs to stick to the script this week.

Danger signs

Morrison has already courted controversy on foreign policy in a short period of time. He skipped the UN General Assembly in September. He also missed the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru, forcing Payne to reassure Pacific neighbours that he wasn’t “snubbing” them.

Morrison did go straight to Jakarta in his first overseas trip as leader to meet with President Joko Widodo and sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Indonesia.

But he was then accused of playing “straight from Trump’s songbook” when he mused about moving Australia’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem without consulting diplomats or generals beforehand. It was widely seen as a crude attempt to win the Jewish vote in the Wentworth by-election.

One downfall of Australian leaders is they can sometimes look parochial and small-town while on the big stage. For example, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott made a cringeworthy speech to G20 leaders in Brisbane in 2014 about GP co-payments and stopping the boats. Opposition leader Bill Shorten described it as “weird and graceless”.

In his case, Morrison failed to realise the negative reception his embassy musings would receive in Indonesia. Now, his meetings with Widodo are likely to be frosty, with no plans to sign the free-trade agreement by the end of the year.

Morrison’s meetings with Xi, Putin and Modi

In his recent headland speech, Morrison seemed to adopt a Malcolm Turnbull-style line on taking a middle path with the US and China, noting that a confrontation between the two powers:

risks unimagined damage to economic growth and the global order. Damage where no-one benefits. Lose-lose.

Nevertheless, the speech was strong on values, many of which China does not share.

It is also not clear how Xi will view the recent Pacific push from Morrison, though he seemed to offer the possibility for partnership in the region.

Morrison’s meeting with Putin at the East Asia Summit will likewise be interesting to watch. This is Putin’s first time at the summit, but by no means his first rodeo. His presence is perhaps indicative of Russia’s intention to pivot more attention towards the Indo-Pacific region, taking advantage of Trump’s absence.

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Russia is a rising military power in the Asia-Pacific, and Australia needs to take it seriously

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In yet another foreign policy stumble, Abbott once famously vowed to “shirtfront” Putin over the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. Putin enjoys such displays of toxic masculinity; hopefully, Morrison can restrain himself.

Australia wants to enhance its partnership with India, so we should see Morrison make a beeline for Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ASEAN meeting, hoping for one of Modi’s signature hugs.

Before meeting Modi, Morrison will hopefully have carefully read the India Economic Strategy to 2035, authored by the former high commissioner to India and head of DFAT, Peter Varghese.

Modi got a hug of his own from Abbott during his high-profile visit to Australia in 2014.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP

Our Pacific family

Last week, Morrison made perhaps his most important foreign policy speech – a major strategic announcement on the Pacific. He said Australia would open five new embassies and launch an infrastructure bank in the region to the tune of A$2 billion, and declared the Pacific “our patch”:

This is our part of the world. This is where we have special responsibilities. We always have, we always will. We have their back, and they have ours. We are more than partners by choice. We are connected as members of a Pacific family.

The announcement came after he signed a deal for a joint naval base in Papua New Guinea. Both this and the infrastructure bank were seen as ways of countering Chinese influence in the Pacific, but Morrison did refrain from using any anti-China rhetoric.

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For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

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This is noteworthy. Tess Newton Cain has pointed out that Australia often misses the right tone of respect and partnership in its announcements to the region.

But despite this new push for Pacific engagement, Australia is still seen as weak on climate policy – a hugely important issue to Pacific leaders. This could result in difficult conversations for Morrison at APEC, as PNG has invited many Pacific nations to attend for the first time.

Sit down, be humble

Even if Morrison puts his best foot forward to overcome his poor start on foreign policy, he will still have difficulty standing out in the crowd.

Even leaders require some political capital to stand out in those big rooms.

The churn in Australian prime ministers means that some foreign leaders may not consider it worth the time or energy to build a relationship of personal trust with Morrison if they view him more like a caretaker. Former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had spent 10 years building up this diplomatic trust and stability in her various roles, but that was severed abruptly.

My advice to Morrison? Stay humble and listen. Read the briefs, listen to the diplomats and do everything Payne and DFAT Secretary Frances Adamson say to do, to the letter.

Susan Harris Rimmer, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Griffith Law School, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Summit with Kim is boosting Trump’s confidence – that might not be a good thing

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Stephen Benedict Dyson, University of Connecticut

Moments after President Donald Trump shook North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s hand for the first time, Trump pronounced: “We will have a terrific relationship.”

Trump’s snap judgment fulfilled his prediction before the June 12 summit that he would be able to evaluate Kim’s intentions “within the first minute” of meeting him.

High-level politicians often think that they are experts at reading and influencing other leaders. They quickly come to believe that they are the world’s leading authority on any counterpart they meet in person. For example, President George W. Bush was so enamored with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that senior advisers launched a concerted campaign to curb his enthusiasm.

“You’re my man,” Bush would say to Maliki. When advisers told the president he was undercutting U.S. efforts to pressure Maliki, Bush responded with incredulity: “Are you saying I’m the problem?”

If Trump follows this pattern I’ve found when studying the personal side of foreign policy, he may believe that he now has special insight into Kim. And that means the dynamics of U.S. policymaking toward North Korea have changed. Having met Kim, the president will be even less likely to listen to experts in the intelligence and diplomatic communities.

From first impressions to agreement

Hours after Trump and Kim first met, the two leaders emerged from their talks to sign a joint document. The U.S. is prepared to guarantee the regime’s security, and North Korea is willing to “work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” according to the statement. Trump called it a “very comprehensive agreement.”

Critics are charging that the letter was closer to North Korea’s preferences than the “comprehensive, verifiable, irreversible de-nuclearization” sought by the United States.

Perhaps the document is underwhelming, repeating North Korean promises of the past without any clear road map to making them reality. But something significant changed in Singapore: President Trump has met Kim face to face.

Intelligence

On the eve of the summit, details emerged of a profile of Kim’s personality, provided to the president by allied intelligence agencies.

This is standard practice prior to meetings with foreign leaders. But once the leaders have met in person, intelligence analysis takes second place to first-hand impressions.

In the future, expert counsel on Kim’s intentions may clash with Trump’s positive perception of the North Korean leader. In the post-summit press conference Trump called Kim “very talented.” He told journalist Greta van Susteren that Kim has “a great personality, he’s a funny guy, he’s very smart. He loves his people.”

From now on, analyses from the diplomatic and intelligence communities that fit Trump’s view of Kim will be favored, those at odds with his view may be dismissed.

This dynamic is common in policymaking, and there are reasons to think it could be extremely consequential in this case.

Relying on ‘touch, feel’

First, Trump’s tendency to trust his instincts is already pronounced. Asked by a reporter before the summit how he would know if Kim was serious about de-nuclearization, Trump said he would rely upon “my touch, my feel. It’s what I do.”

Second, the intricate series of steps toward disarmament of a nuclear arsenal require expert verification. Ostensibly cooperative actions – like destroying nuclear test tunnels – might turn out to be empty gestures once analysts have pored over the surveillance footage. The North Korean regime has a history of making public agreements, then advancing their nuclear arsenal in secret.

This summit process began with a snap decision by Trump to accept an offer to meet with Kim. The most significant result may be Trump’s new confidence that he uniquely understands the North Korean leader. This will further reinforce the defining dynamic of Trump’s presidency so far: Ignore the experts, trust your gut.

Stephen Benedict Dyson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Trump-Kim summit: North Korean leader emerges a clear winner as Donald Trump reverts to type

Virginie Grzelczyk, Aston University

At first glance, it is easy to call the meeting between US president, Donald Trump, and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un, “historic” and “unprecedented”. It was the first meeting between sitting leaders of the two countries, which are still technically in a state of war.

You could also call it a success – preparations and schedules were respected, the media had ample opportunity to take shots of the two men shaking hands in front of the colourful display of 12 intermingled American and North Korean flags – and they were also privy to comments by the two leaders, including Kim in one of his very rare appearances in front of the foreign press.

The meeting was also a success from a security and optics points of view: smiles were exchanged, in-depth discussions took place between cabinet members, nobody went off script and there were no security breaches, thanks to ironclad preparations by their Singaporean hosts.

Now that both leaders are on their way back to their own countries, we are left with many photos of the bromance du jour, as well as a signed statement – and a plethora of questions. What should we take away from this historic moment? Here are three key points:

1. Ultimately it was North Korea’s day

Kim has managed to build upon the work of his father and grandfather and secured the highest form of recognition that there is – a bilateral meeting with the president of the most powerful country on the planet.

And North Korea did not have to pay a cent for it: China furnished a plane, Singapore footed the US$15m-plus bill for the summit, and the media distributed images of the North Korean leader parlaying on equal terms with the US president to the entire world. It’s a resounding success for Kim – and one that is likely to be exploited back home for political purpose.

2. What is written in the agreement

The joint document signed by both parties shows the craftiness and hardline approach the DPRK has taken to the summit. Though the agreement commits both parties to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula – removing all nuclear weapons from the region, including potential American weapons – the DPRK has only reiterated, in writing, its commitment to “work towards” this aim.

This is certainly not the pledge for the unilateral dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear programme that the US has always pushed for.

3. What is not written in the agreement

The agreement shows a clear miss from the United States, as there are no mentions of CVID (“complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement”) of North Korean nuclear capabilities – something that was talked about a great deal in the run up to the meeting.

Given that Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and national security adviser, John Bolton, have signalled that they would accept nothing short of CVID, this is a giant omission. Essentially, this should be read as a refusal from the DPRK to state that they would denuclearise unilaterally.

4. Putting words into action

The agreement provides very vague concepts for a new US-DPRK relationship – one that will without a doubt also change the nature of balance and geopolitics in East Asia and relationships with other regional actors such as South Korea, Russia, China and Japan.

The first concrete action was for the American president to announce he intends to call a halt to the annual war game exercises organised between the US and South Korea (the most recent exercises nearly derailed the inter-Korea summit a few weeks ago). This is an important step toward confidence building for both sides of the summit and one that should be praised.

But it is important to note that Trump’s rationale was to scrap the war games, not because they offend and worry the DPRK – but, as he himself stated to the media, because they cost a lot of money. And money – especially the way Trump thinks the rest of the world takes advantage of the US – was a theme the US president returned to repeatedly in the post-summit press conference.

Trump also talked about real estate development opportunities in the DPRK. In essence, Trump’s money-focused transactional nature took only a few hours to surface after his handshake with Kim. But peace has a cost and, given the current US narrative that seeks to avoid foreign entanglement and is fed up with spending money on international commitments, it will require the United States to manage its shaky alliances if this is to be a realistic prospect.

And as reactions are starting to pour in from world leaders, it is important to remember that the summit has given the DPRK legitimacy on the world stage, while there was little talk of how this legitimacy was acquired: essentially by developing nuclear weapons.

Kim is a dictator who has purged a number of rivals while starving and oppressing his own population. Ultimately, Trump has just willingly sat down with a villain and not gained much in the way of concessions in return.

Virginie Grzelczyk, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Aston University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Summit on, then off, now on again? The seemingly endless game-playing of US-North Korea relations

Having cancelled the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on June 12, US President Donald Trump says it may be back on again.
AAP/Chris Kleponis/pool

Genevieve Hohnen, Edith Cowan University

Ten days ago, the international community was facing an existential crisis: US President Donald Trump may be a credible nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Korean Peninsula.

Trump’s unconventional tactics appeared to have led to a legitimate thawing of relations with the reclusive and dogmatic Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The planned summit on June 12 in Singapore was considered a potential path to ending the long-running Korean conflict, which time and again has threatened to make nuclear war a reality.

Now, less than a fortnight later, the talks are off – for now – although a second summit on Saturday between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could pave the way for their reinstatement. The reality is that the way forward for the Korean dispute could not be murkier, although Trump is now suggesting June 12 will go ahead as planned.

So the questions remain: what happened? and where to from here?

The derailing process – White House musical chairs

Trump instinctively likes strong-man leaders in the style of Kim. He likes to think he can talk to these sorts of leaders “man-to-man”, sorting complex issues out with business-style tactics. Until recently, these seemed to be working in North Korea, leading to the recent inter-Korean meeting at the Demilitarised Zone border, and the promise of the summit with the US.

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Read more:
North and South Korea met – but what does it really mean?

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However, the revolving door of advisors in the chaotic Trump White House has come back to bite the administration.

In particular, bringing in John Bolton as the National Security Advisor and involving him in the Korean summit was a clear strategic error by the Trump team with far-reaching consequences. Bolton is not a new face for the North Koreans. They know him well and he has a long and chequered history with the regime, which it is in no hurry to forget.

When George W Bush took office in 2001, Bolton was a key figure in scuttling the Bill Clinton-led deal that was in the works in late 2000/early 2001. Not long after this, North Korea appeared in Bush’s infamous “axis of evil” speech, and the stage was set for confrontation. Bolton’s involvement has not been an effective way to build rapport prior to the June 12 summit.

Pence, Bolton and the Kim regime

About a week ago, murmurs emerging from North Korean circles indicated Kim Jong-Un was shying away from committing fully to the June 12 summit. The return of Bolton, and the interjection of Vice President Mike Pence to the issue, had led to a return to the aggressive rhetoric we had come to expect from the North Korean regime.

The likely key turning point for Kim Jong-un was the comparison with the Libyan example from 2003 by both Bolton and Pence. In 2003, then-leader Muammar Gaddafi agreed to give up all weapons in return for the lifting of sanctions.

While the west may remember this as a successful denuclearisation process, undoubtedly what Kim Jong-Un clearly recalls is the deposing and killing of Gaddafi less than a decade later in 2011. Many dictatorial leaders, including Kim Jong-Un, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin have reiterated that the image of Gaddafi being dragged behind a car through Tripoli haunts them and influences their decisions to this day.

For Kim Jong-un, the experience of Libya has always been a warning sign to never give up your nuclear arsenal. Gaddafi was deposed and killed just as Kim Jong-un assumed the leadership following his father’s death in late 2010. The experience of Libya is a key lesson in why North Korea pursued nuclear weapons so aggressively under his watch. To bring this up in the lead-up to the summit as an example that may be replicated would have immediately put the North Korean leadership on high alert.

Trump’s response – From engagement to ego protection

One reason Trump likely to have pulled the pin is to save face. His Art of the Deal co-author Tony Schwartz commented:

Trump has a morbid fear of being humiliated and shamed. This is showing who’s the biggest and the strongest, so he is exquisitely sensitive to the possibility that he would end up looking weak and small. There is nothing more unacceptable to Trump than that.

In Trump’s mind, it is better to jump first than have the Koreans pull the rug out from underneath him.

The potential diplomatic damage from the public abandonment of the summit is immense. In particular, the sudden announcement of the US’s withdrawal from the summit blindsided key allies, especially South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Moon has staked his reputation on solving the Korean conflict, and members of his administration have been on record in the days leading up to the withdrawal stating that the chance of the summit happening was 99.9%.

After the letter withdrawing from the summit was released, clearly catching the South Korean government off guard, a Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said:

We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means.

China and North Korea – back on the same page?

The plans for the summit, and the associated thawing of relations with South Korea, also contributed to the warming of the recently frosty relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang. Kim’s first overseas trip since taking on the leadership was a recent visit to China to meet with President Xi Jinping.

Historically an ally of North Korea, China has been a key factor in bringing Kim Jong-un to the table by actually committing to enforce the international sanctions on North Korea. The recent meetings between Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping may mean China becomes less willing to continue with actively enforcing the sanctions.

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If a US-North Korea summit does happen, we’ll have Moon Jae-in to thank for it

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Trump suspected China was already weakening its stance. Tweeting out shortly before news of the cancellation of the June summit broke, Trump accused China of weakening the measures that brought North Korea to the table.

Trump publicly urged the Chinese regime to be “strong & tight” on sanctions. What China decides to do next will in large part determine whether there remains any credible chance of peace on the Korean peninsula.

There seem to be constant leaks trickling out of a White House seemingly incapable of maintaining confidentiality. In essence, the US policy on North Korea under Trump remains a moving target. In a statement to reporters on Friday, Trump said “everybody plays games”, then soon after tweeted “very good news to receive the warm and productive statement from North Korea”.

So there now appears hope that the Singapore summit may still take place. On Saturday, Moon and Kim met for the second time at the border truce village in the DMZ.

Moon presumably used the meeting to get the plans for the summit back on track. The unknown element is the price of the inconsistency in Trump’s approach. In the case of North Korea, playing “games” while risking genuine efforts to seek denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula may come at an exceedingly high cost.

Genevieve Hohnen, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Edith Cowan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

If a US-North Korea summit does happen, we’ll have Moon Jae-in to thank for it

moon.

Benjamin Habib, La Trobe University

In the wake of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s meeting yesterday with US President Donald Trump, it’s worth reflecting on the remarkable role he’s played in facilitating the opening for diplomacy that’s emerged this year between the US and North Korea.

During a tumultuous 2017 on the Korean peninsula, North Korea intensified its missile development program with 16 separate missile tests, and conducted its sixth nuclear weapon test, its most powerful detonation to date. For his part, Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” and to “totally destroy” North Korea, insulting Kim Jong-un as “rocket man,” a “madman” and “short and fat” in the process.

He eventually redeployed the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to the Sea of Japan, as the drumbeat of war grew louder.

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North and South Korea met – but what does it really mean?

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It was a difficult environment for Moon to step into as the new leader of South Korea eager to pursue an agenda of rapprochement with the North. Yet Moon’s government has been able to craft a distinctive approach to engagement with an unpredictable leader like Kim and an American president who is equally erratic and deeply uncertain about his approach to North Korea policy.

Moon has made great strides in recent months, though we will have to hold judgement on the success of his approach until after Korea’s season of summits plays out.

A history of progressive politics

Moon Jae-in came from humble beginnings, born to a poor family who had fled the North during the Korean War. As a student at Kyung Hee University during the 1970s, he was involved in the emerging pro-democracy movement against the dictator Park Chung-hee. He also took part in Operation Paul Bunyan during his compulsory military service, the retaliatory operation to the infamous 1976 killings of two US Army officers by North Korean soldiers (known as the “axe murder incident”).

Moon eventually graduated from university and passed the bar exam in 1982, but was unable to advance in the judiciary due to his pro-democracy activist history. Through the 1980s, Moon partnered in a law firm with future South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, specialising in human rights cases.

Moon’s relationship with Roh would later lead him into politics. He was an official in Roh’s presidential administration, during which time he oversaw the opening of the Kaesong Industrial Park in North Korea in 2004 and was involved in organising the 2007 inter-Korean summit.

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As North Korea builds a season of summits, the stakes on denuclearisation remain high

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Moon made the jump from government official to elected representative in 2012, when he was elected to the South Korean National Assembly. He later launched an unsuccessful campaign for president against Park Geun-hye.

He became chairperson of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy in 2015, which later morphed into the Democratic Party of Korea. Then, a year later, he rose to the forefront of the protest movement against Park and emerged as a leading presidential candidate following her impeachment.

He went on to comfortably win the May 2017 presidential election, pledging to revive the engagement strategies of the Sunshine Policy era and seek better ties with the North.

A pivotal actor

Moon has advocated for a firm but patient strategy in engaging with North Korea. In his inaugural address as president, he expressed a willingness to:

go anywhere for the peace of the Korean peninsula. If necessary, I will fly straight to Washington. I will go to Beijing and Tokyo and under the right circumstances go to Pyongyang, as well. I will do whatever I can to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula.

His enthusiasm for a more activist approach toward the North contrasted with the freeze in inter-Korean relations that had developed during the more conservative reciprocity-based strategy favoured by presidents Park and Lee Myung-bak.

Moon sees his engagement strategy as part of a broader push by South Korea to integrate Northeast Asia via the New Northern Policy.

The strategy is aimed at buttressing regional security through economic and infrastructure linkages, or “nine bridges” between South Korea and Russia in the form of gas pipelines, railway connections, seaports, regional electricity grid integration, Arctic shipping routes, shipbuilding, labour exchange, and the co-development of agriculture and fisheries projects.

Elements of the New Northern Policy emerged in Article 1.6 of the Panmunjom Declaration from the recent inter-Korean summit, which mentioned the potential opening of railway and road corridors across the DMZ between North and South Korea. These kinds of economic incentives may be highly attractive for North Korea as it pursues its Byungjin development model (simultaneous nuclear weapons proliferation and economic development).

Despite taking a firm line on sanctions against North Korea following Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, the Moon administration capitalised on the auspiciously timed Pyeongchang Winter Olympics to open a new line of communication with the North Koreans. This bought much-needed time for diplomacy as tensions between the US and North Korea were reaching a boiling point.

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Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambition: what is North Korea’s endgame?

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Since then, the South Korean government has been subtly attempting to corral the Trump administration into an engagement track with Pyongyang as well. Moon has taken every chance to praise Trump for making the US-North Korea summit possible, and in recent days has tried to smooth over tensions to keep the summit on track after Kim threatened to pull out.

By accident or design, the Moon-Kim summit last month and proposed Trump-Kim summit scheduled for next month have opened a window of opportunity to move away from the status quo toward a permanent peace on the Korean peninsula.

While Trump and Kim will inevitably grab all the headlines, Moon has been a pivotal actor in this drama. His activism in engaging the North has helped to make it politically safer for the Trump administration to negotiate with Kim, a prospect that was unthinkable only months ago.

Benjamin Habib, Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

As North Korea builds a season of summits, the stakes on denuclearisation remain high

Benjamin Habib, La Trobe University

This week’s high-stakes summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un heralds a new period of negotiations in which regional states attempt to manage a northeast Asian security environment that includes a nuclear North Korea.

Several analysts, myself included, have long postulated that a primary objective of North Korea’s nuclear weapons development was to enter a new phase of security negotiations with the United States from a position of increased strength.

Pyongyang’s willingness to engage in a fresh round of summits with Seoul and Washington is a good indicator that it has completed the technical development of its nuclear weapons capability and has a nuclear deterrent ready (or nearly ready) to deploy.

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War with North Korea: from unthinkable to unavoidable?

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Official statements coming out of Pyongyang indicate as much. In a statement on April 20, reported by Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong-un said North Korea will “discontinue nuclear testing and inter-continental ballistic rocket test-fire” as “technology for mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic rockets has been reliably realised”.

The completion of its nuclear development gambit has implications for the timing and direction of North Korea’s summits with South Korea and the United States.

Concessions and confidence-building

With denuclearisation in the rear-view mirror, could we see a pathway toward a treaty to formally end the Korean War? That would seem to be an objective for North Korea, but remains a long way off. It would require a long period of mutual confidence-building to establish the trust necessary to make a treaty possible.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has announced an end to the North’s nuclear testing.
AAP/KCNA

So, what of substance is North Korea willing to concede? Kim’s statement on a nuclear and missile test moratorium, and closing the nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, is the most prominent concession made yet.

However, we should be clear that this does not mean North Korea has any interest in denuclearising. Punggye-ri is a superfluous asset if testing is no longer required for technical analysis. The site is also reported to be no longer fit for purpose, having been geologically destabilised by six nuclear tests.

The North will continue to produce fissile material. The oft-cited US Defense Intelligence Agency assessment released last year estimates a stockpile of fissile material sufficient for 40-60 nuclear warheads, increasing at a rate of about 12 warheads per year at current estimated rates of production.

North Korea also has a history of circumventing commitments agreed to in the past. This includes its development of a highly enriched uranium program in contravention of the Agreed Framework in the late 1990s, its violation in July 2006 of the 1999 missile testing moratorium, and its 2008 abandonment of the Six-Party Talks.

Information is the key to international co-operation, reducing the uncertainty that countries have about each other’s actions. It remains unclear what North Korea can offer to assuage American scepticism that it will honour a deal.

On the other side of the table, what is the negotiating goal for the United States? Some analysts worry Trump may be entering negotiations with unrealistic expectations of a denuclearisation deal. There is a fear he will offer too much to North Korea, or that negotiations will fall in a heap when the reality of the demise of “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” sinks in.

A hard cap on North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability could be the new negotiating point. Now that the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, constraining the Nort’s nuclear weapons capability is shaping as the most practical goal for the US in terms of its commitments to protecting its regional allies and maintaining the integrity of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

In a worst-case scenario, the Trump administration could use the summit as a straw man to mobilise a case for attacking North Korea. The appointment of the ultra-hawkish John Bolton as national security adviser would seem to signal a tough line, given his long record of advocacy for the use of force against the North.

For reasons I outlined at length last year (here, here and here), war on the Korean Peninsula remains a terrible option.

The Moon-Kim summit

Moon Jae-in’s meeting this week with Kim Jong-un is arguably the more important of the two summits. This meeting could help shape the negotiating agenda for the US-North Korea summit later this year.

A successful summit between Moon and Kim will need to produce some substantive points of agreement on key security issues. These include negotiation of a nuclear freeze and/or missile testing moratorium, in addition to smaller confidence-building measures. The summit will allow Moon to “road test” a negotiating agenda, as David Kang has argued, for the later Trump-Kim meeting.

However, a nascent South-North détente emerging from the summit could constrain the US bargaining position. It will be much harder for Trump to play a game of high-stakes brinkmanship with the Kim regime if Kim and Moon have agreed to a clear pathway of confidence-building measures.

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Five assumptions we make about North Korea – and why they’re wrong

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The South Korean government will be keen to railroad the Trump administration into an engagement track with Pyongyang. Some within the South Korean establishment see Trump as a loose cannon and his administration as an unreliable variable in Korean Peninsula security.

Trump’s lack of consultation with South Korea during his escalations of 2017, the continued absence of a permanent US ambassador to South Korea, and the lack of a coherent North Korea policy in Washington are seen as evidence that Seoul needs to be more activist in pursuing its own agenda.

Inter-Korean co-operation on the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics earlier this year was successful in dialling down tensions on the Peninsula and closing the window, at least for the time being, on American military action against the North.

The end of denuclearisation politics has opened new possibilities for the direction of the Korean Peninsula. The tensions of 2017 showed us a glimpse of disaster. The summits of 2018 may represent a doorway to a new arrangement for collective management of Korean Peninsula security.

Benjamin Habib, Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

India Finally Allows EU to Visit Orissa – But No Fact-Finding

After months of asking, delegation wins clearance to enter Kandhamal district.

NEW DELHI, January 29 (CDN) — Weary of international scrutiny of troubled Kandhamal district in Orissa state, officials yesterday finally allowed delegates from the European Union (EU) to visit affected areas – as long as they do no fact-finding.

A team of 13 diplomats from the EU was to begin its four-day tour of Kandhamal district yesterday, but the federal government had refused to give the required clearance to visit the area, which was wracked by anti-Christian violence in 2008. A facilitator of the delegation said that authorities then reversed themselves and yesterday gave approval to the team.

The team plans to visit Kandhamal early next month to assess the state government’s efforts in rehabilitating victims and prosecuting attackers in the district, where a spate of anti-Christian violence in August-September 2008 killed over 100 people and burned 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions.

When the federal government recommended that Orissa state officials allow the delegation to visit the area, the state government agreed under the condition that the diplomats undertake no fact-finding, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. The government stipulated to the EU team, led by the deputy chief of mission of the Spanish embassy, Ramon Moreno, that they are only to interact with local residents. The delegation consented.

Delegates from the EU had also sought a visit to Kandhamal in November 2009, but the government denied permission. The diplomats from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland were able to make it only to the Orissa state capital, Bhubaneswar, at that time.

Ironically, three days before the government initially denied permission to the EU team, the head of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mohan Bhagwat, visited Orissa and addressed a huge rally of its cadres in Bhubaneswar, reported PTI on Tuesday (Jan. 26).

While Bhagwat was not reported to have made an inflammatory speech, many Christians frowned on his visit. It is believed that his organization was behind the violence in Kandhamal, which began after a leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, was killed by Maoists (extreme Marxists) on Aug. 23, 2008. Hindu extremist groups wrongly blamed it on local Christians in order to stir up anti-Christian violence.

On Nov. 11, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told the state assembly House that 85 people from the RSS, 321 members of the VHP and 118 workers of the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the VHP, were rounded up by the police for the attacks in Kandhamal.

EU’s Indictments

It is believed that New Delhi was hesitant to allow EU’s teams into Kandhamal because it has indicted India on several occasions for human rights violations. Soon after violence broke out in Kandhamal, the European Commission, EU’s executive wing, called it a “massacre of minorities.”

Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, who was attending the ninth India-EU summit in France at the time of the violence, called the anti-Christian attacks a “national shame.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, took up the issue “strongly with Singh,” reported The Times of India on Sept. 30, 2008.

On Aug. 17, 2009, the EU asked its citizens not to visit Kandhamal in an advisory stating that religious tensions were not yet over. “We therefore advise against travel within the state and in rural areas, particularly in the districts of Kandhamal and Bargarh,” it stated.

The EU’s advisory came at a time when the state government was targeting the visit of 200,000 foreign tourists to Orissa, noted PTI.

Kandhamal Superintendent of Police Praveen Kumar suggested that the advisory was not based on truth.

“There is no violence in Kandhamal since October 2008,” he told PTI. “The people celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Day as peace returned to the tribal dominated district.”

Before denying permission to the EU, the Indian government had restricted members of a U.S. panel from coming to the country. In June 2009, the government refused to issue visas for members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to visit Orissa. The panel then put India on its “Watch List” for the country’s violations of religious freedom.

Tensions Remain

Local human rights activist Ajay Singh said that while the state government had made some efforts to rehabilitate the victims, a lot more needed to be done.

An estimated 300 families are still living in private relief camps in Kandhamal, and at least 1,200 families have left Kandhamal following the violence, he said. These families have not gone back to their villages, fearing that if they returned without converting to Hinduism they would be attacked, he added.

Singh also said that authorities have asked more than 100 survivors of communal violence living in an abandoned market complex known as NAC, in G. Udayagiri area of Kandhamal, to move out. He said it is possible they were asked to leave because of the intended visit of the EU team.

Of the more than 50,000 people displaced by the violence, around 1,100 have received some compensation either from the government or from Christian and other organizations, he added.

Additionally, the state administration has to do much more in bringing the attackers to justice, said a representative of the Christian Legal Association. Of the total 831 police cases registered, charges have been filed in around 300 cases; 133 of these have been dropped due to “lack of evidence,” said the source.

Report from Compass Direct News