Who is the winner in Trump-Kim summit? Some say its neither Trump nor Kim but Xi Jinping! After this historical summit, more than the American interests Chinese aim of diminishing the US influence in the region seems to have won. What aids this conclusion is
the US decision to call off all the military exercises with South Korea.
When months earlier when the US established a direct contact with North Korea, the world thought that China had been left out from the picture. But Beijing could not let that go easily thanks to their long claimed security and economic interests in the Korean Peninsula, which was taken up by the Chinese officials who reminded the role of China to the US and North Korea.
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The silent but powerful Chinese diplomacy was reflected later in President Trump’s proclamation that the US would stop all its massive war games with South Korea. This info was briefed with out any delay to the Chinese President and other top leaders by the
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
According to Wu Xinbo, who is an expert on international relations at Shanghai’s Fudan University, the results of the Singapore summit were basically in line with China’s expectations. Another Western diplomat classified China as the ‘startegic winner’ of
the summit. These views are borne out of the fact that earlier nobody even dreamt of Trump calling off the military exercises with South Korea or reducing the no. of the US troops there.
China has been for years boosting the North Korean economy even after the international pressure against it possibly because of its view on North Korea as a strategic buffer against the US presence in South Korea.At the same time worried at the Nuclear
advancement of North Korea, China supported the US sanctions on North Korea by cutting off the import of coal, textiles and other goods from North Korea.
Kim Jong Un, considered as a persona non grata, visited China two times after the sanctions got harder. The last meeting happened last month in Dalian in China and after that, it happened to get into the priority of North Korea, the demand to stop combined
military exercises by the US and South Korea.
Bonnie Glaser, Senior Asia Advisor at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that China finally succeeded in dislodging the US troops in the region which would pave the way to create a ‘more China centric region’.The victory of China was in presurising the US in including them as a mediator in otherwise a non happening incident of Trump-Kim summit. Charlie Parton, a former British diplomat in China currently working at the UK-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said that ultimately if there was to be a successful settlement between the US and North Korea, China had to be involved.
China with an enormous land border with North Korea was unignorable and also the denuclearisation of North Korea could not be safely promoted with out China, said Wu Xinbo. Wu added that as China had successfully brought itself vback into the negotiations, it could use its position for leverage in other areas of its realtionship with the US.
How ever, former British diplomat Charlie Parton warned that if a trade war was opened between the US and China then it would have an impact on the entire Sino-Us relationshp and also in their future relations with North Korea. In such a case, the now seen coordination between two world powers over North Korea will get more complicated.
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