The revelation that CIA director Mike Pompeo met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang over the Easter holidays appears to confirm that both sides are eager for talks between the leaders of the two countries to go ahead.
In 2000, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright travelled to North Korea for talks with Kim’s father Kim Jong-il when he was leader, but no official meetings between senior political personnel have occurred since.
So what does Pompeo’s visit mean for the future of talks between Kim and Trump, scheduled for late May or early June this year, considering that it’s been reported Pompeo was laying the groundwork for the logistics surrounding them as recently as two weeks ago.
Kim and his entourage are unlikely to fly or travel by boat to any talks with Trump; he and his predecessors’ preference has always been to travel by rail.
Somewhere in northern China, then, is the most likely venue. The city of Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast is a viable alternative to China, although this option is hampered by both the United States’ ongoing consternation with Vladimir Putin and China’s insistence that it play a key role facilitating and mediating these diplomatic discussions. Nothing has been announced yet but that it might be China will surprise no one.
Despite Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang, it remains unlikely Donald Trump and his team would travel to North Korea and even less likely that Kim Jong-un would go to the United States (despite his love of basketball and the chance to catch up with his old buddy Dennis Rodman).
It is also unlikely that the talks will be held either in the contested demilitarised zone on North Korea’s southern border or in South Korea, although this cannot be ruled out.
Technically the North still does not formally recognise the South’s integrity as an independent government. This would make the North’s agreement to holding talks there a tacit acknowledgement of the South’s credibility and usefulness.
In what has proved to be a tense military scenario since September 2016, when the North tested what appeared to be a nuclear bomb underground, it would be unwise to escalate tensions further by holding talks in the hostile demilitarised zone.
The zone is, after all, a potent symbol of ongoing conflict. Weight was added to the likelihood of a China venue a few weeks ago when Kim Jong-un made his first official trip abroad since becoming leader of North Korea in 2011; he and his wife met with President Xi Jinping of China and his wife Peng Liyuan in Beijing.
Kim travelled on his exclusive train from Pyongyang with the meeting only being confirmed once the train had returned safely over the border into North Korea. This continued that long family legacy of train-only travel with strict stipulations.
As supreme leader, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather Kim Il-sung made his longest trip by train in 1974 when he travelled to and from North Korea on a tour of Eastern Europe’s Soviet Socialist Republics.
Kim Jong-il, who apparently had a fear of flying, travelled by rail to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin in 2001 and again in August 2011, shortly before dying of a heart attack on his train in December 2011 within North Korea.
Such is the apparent pride that North Korea takes in its former leaders’ passion for the railways that the mausoleums of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang – in which one can view their embalmed bodies at relatively close quarters, as well as peruse attached museums – have grand rooms dedicated solely to their former leaders’ international travels by train.
One can even look inside the train carriage in which Kim Jong-il died in December 2011, complete with the old grey anorak that he was often seen wearing in public during winter months still hanging on its peg behind his desk.
This is not to say that the Kims historically always refused to step into a plane. In 1965 President Kim Il-sung, accompanied by his then 24-year-old son and successor Kim Jong-il, travelled by air to Indonesia for the 10th anniversary of the landmark 1955 Bandung Conference on Asia-Africa affairs in Indonesia.
However, in later years, as the diplomatic isolation of North Korea increased, the country’s leaders have received fewer invitations and have had less inclination to travel overseas – and they have done so only by rail.
Kim Jong-un was invited to Moscow in 2015 as part of the commemoration events to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union’s contribution to the Allied campaigns in the Second World War. However, after some speculation over his attendance, he opted to stay away. Perhaps it was the thought of the travel time that put him off.
But back to the upcoming talks between him and Donald Trump: one major point of interest is how much media presence will be allowed in, and how much the public internationally will be allowed to know about what’s discussed.
The supreme leaders of North Korea rarely meet other heads of state and when they have there has been limited, if any, media coverage. Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang and Kim’s recent visit to China, which came to light after the event, are cases in point. It may be that we also do not find out about Kim and Trump’s meeting until after it has happened.
This might be a frustration for those of us who are avid followers of North Korea and international diplomacy, and who are keen to see the demeanours of arguably the two most notorious politicians of our time when they meet.
However, it is not all bad news. Political communications theory backed up by historical experience tells us that when diplomacy goes public, it tends to reduce the level of substance within the discussion. Indeed, the interaction may become a mere exercise in public relations rather than a frank discussion and negotiation between leaders and their representatives.
The extent of the media’s access to the likely meeting between Kim and Trump, therefore, will be an indicator of how much substance (versus showmanship) is involved in those talks.
A very public meeting, while powerful in its symbolism and offering significant “infotainment” value to the public, may not deliver much in terms of altering the strained power dynamics between the two countries.
Those of us whose primary concern is nuclear disarmament, or the de-escalation of the nuclear threat rhetoric, will have to accept peace is more likely if the two leaders are able to debate privately with an agreed joint communiqué.
It means less access for us, and perhaps only a single photograph of a handshake being released to the world’s media afterwards, but it could also mean the decline of the threat of a nuclear genocide that some world leaders appear uncomfortably comfortable considering.
The Independent.