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North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency reported that leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Pyongyang on Mar. 5. (KCNA/Yonhap News)

There was something plaintive about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s recent train journey, a 7,000km round trip from Pyongyang to Hanoi and back. Rather than the romance and epic quality of a transcontinental railway odyssey, what came through was the anguish of someone who felt he was traveling with the fate of 25 million North Koreans in his hands. Echoing the film Snowpiercer, the grotesque and seemingly anachronistic train raised even more questions about just where its destination lies.

Kim’s arduous train journey seemed illustrative of his difficult situation. The breakdown of the Hanoi negotiations made it all the more apparent just what a hangover the North’s nuclear program has left it facing. Things are now so urgent that it is willing to give up its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon if that can get the sanctions noose loosened. Yet even that did not go as planned. All that focus on nuclear development failed to leave North Korea in much of a position, while the livelihoods of its residents have failed to live up to expectations.

With the Hanoi summit, North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship entered a downhill slide. Its high-wire strategy with the US – attempting to gain economic benefits with the partial dismantlement of its nukes – did not work out as hoped. The approach seemed to work with Donald Trump in Singapore, but this time Kim Jong-un ended up taking a serious blow. In the past, the nuclear brinkmanship has seemed to afford North Korea tactical victories at crucial moments, only to leave it ultimately faced with strategic dilemmas – a nuclear quagmire.

It’s more or less true that this process is the result of US policies of antagonism. The US has hoped for North Korea to fall ever since the collapse of the former Soviet Union – sometimes using threats, sometimes simply ignoring it. It never made effective use of any of its options for preventing the North’s nuclear armament. That being said, North Korea cannot be let off the hook for the “original sin” of its nuclear program, which has left a nuclear shadow hanging over the Korean Peninsula.

What Trump did in Hanoi is not much different from what he has done in the past. It’s a textbook example of “gangster diplomacy”: chucking the working-level agreement in the garbage can and suddenly foisting a document with demands for “complete denuclearization.” With additional terms calling for the dismantlement of biological and chemical weapons and ballistic missiles, it amounted to a demand for complete surrender. What sets Trump apart from his predecessors is that he also broke with tradition by meeting twice with Kim to discuss the nature of denuclearization.

Among the leaders in Northeast Asia, South Korean President Moon Jae-in is in a position to adopt a relatively rational and realistic approach. Xi Jinping could also mediate, but he is constrained by the “great game” of China’s contest with the US. President Moon needs to play the role of driver: checking Trump’s immoderate demands while encouraging Kim to be clearer with his fuzzy concept of denuclearization.

Kim is tasked with opening up a way out in historical terms, taking advantage of the “matchups” with Moon, Trump and Xi. There is no more time to waste struggling in the nuclear quagmire. The people of North Korea themselves are going to want sanctions relief so that they can build an economy. Many analysts have concluded that the North Korean market economy – commonly referred to as the “jangmadang” – have already reached a position of power where the authorities can no longer control them.

Kim Jong-un needs to make a choice: will he continue walking the tightrope with vague promises of denuclearization, return to his brinkmanship approach, or slash the nuclear Gordian knot once and for all? Even if he does opt to return to high-octane brinkmanship, the effects will be limited, and North Korea will only slide deeper into its nuclear quicksand.

Even “step-by-step, simultaneous denuclearization” needs to have a starting and ending point. Vague denuclearization, without some overall picture, is not an option. It is also reasonable for Pyongyang to argue that casting aside all its nuclear capabilities at once would be tantamount to laying down its arms. The relevant countries will need to put their heads together and consider how these two positions can be coordinated.

On the whole, I believe in Kim Jong-un’s commitment to denuclearization – he simply doesn’t have any other options. I also agree with proceeding step-by-step and simultaneously while building trust. But if that process is going to proceed smoothly, Kim Jong-un will need to offer the international community some kind of picture of the overall denuclearization journey. For him, this is a life or death decision.

Back Ki-chul, editorial writer

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