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“The Empty Trump-Kim Summit Turns Korean D¤tente over to Moon”

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jeong Un in Singapore. There has been much excitement in South Korea. South Koreans are upbeat about this year‘s d¤tente. South Korean President Moon Jae In said the Sentosa Declaration laid no less than the foundations of world peace, yet another obvious Moon flattery of Trump’s oversized ego.

The declaration was fairly generic, a rehash of previous North Korean denuclearization commitments such as April‘s Panmunjom Declaration. There is no detailed commitment in it to anything specific, no action plan. It is not a breakthrough, despite Trump’s penchant for glowing rhetoric. Who knows what the North Koreans will do with it? Likely nothing, insisting on yet further negotiation.

But the South Koreans, or rather the Moon administration, did win something quite important in Singapore: Trump has now sidelined himself from the Korean d¤tente process. Moon can now run North Korean engagement as he sees fit.

As South Korea‘s only ally, Moon had to bring the Americans into any meaningful Korean d¤tente. That box had to be checked; that formality has to be wrapped up before Moon could drive forward a serious rapprochement agenda with the North. Gently easing Trump out of the process is likely why Moon pushed so hard for the summit to be held so fast, even as it became very apparent that Trump and the Americans were grossly unprepared. Moon’s point was not for the Americans to bring back some great deal from Singapore ¤ three months was far too little time for that ¤ but to satisfy the basic requirement of American participation and then move on.

And that was done. Trump got his pageantry and global publicity. The Sentosa Declaration was full of vague, positive language, which leaves much discretion for Moon to push forward however he chooses. The declaration allows Trump to declare victory before his domestic audience ¤ as he has already done in conservative, Trumpist media in the US - and then drop the issue. Trump is lazy and disdains policy detail; a long slog of meetings and negotiation with the DPRK does not interest him. He admitted that he did not prepare much for the summit, and most of the work was dumped on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump‘s voluntary exit opens wide political space for Moon. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on one’s North Korea politics. Liberals and doves will be elated. Last year Trump threatened to start a war. This year he briefly thought he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize. Who knows what he will say next? Trump is erratic, unpredictable, and disengaged from policy detail. He has little concrete to offer this year‘s d¤tente, because he does not really care about it, and his penchant for zany outbursts, racism, and dramatic policy u-turns perpetually threatened the peace process. With Trump politely removed from the process, Moon can do as he pleases.

Nationalists too will be pleased. To them, the US has always been a curious, if not unwanted, interloper in Korean affairs. The initial division of the peninsula is blamed by many on the Americans. The repression of Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee also enjoyed a certain level of tolerance from US officials in Korea. Ultimately, the inter-Korean division is a Korean issue, to be resolved by Koreans on their own terms. Outsiders, including the US, China, Japan, Russia, the United Nations, and so on, really should be playing only a supporting role, if any role at all. Trump’s threats last year to start a war without even bothering to consult the South Korean government are exactly what nationalists fear: an outside power dragging Koreans into an unwanted conflict.

Conservatives and North Korea hawks though will worry about this early American drop out from the process. They worry that Moon is too willing to cut a deal with North Korea. Indeed, the South Korean right is slipping into a paranoia over this year‘s peace process with dark rumors of a soft coup by the Moon government and conspiracy theories about Im Jeong Seok. To these voters, Moon is not a Gandhian peacemaker, but an appeaser like Neville Chamberlain. They fear Moon will give North Korea a lot in exchange for very little.

To these conservative voters, the US tie is critical to blunting the left’s engagement policy. The US has long been more hawkish than South Korea regarding North Korea. These voters‘ preferred policy of containing and deterring North Korea, followed ideally by its implosion and Southern-led unification, is impossible without strong US support. This is why these voters often protest clothed in Donald Trump t-shirts and waving American flags. Trump’s decision to effectively quit this year‘s process will disappoint these voters, because the liberal Moon now has a free hand.

Per the nationalist argument, Trump’s recession form the scene is a good thing in a general sense. The two Koreas should indeed by in the driver‘s seat on relations. Last year, Trump wildly over-Americanized the Korean debate. But I fear Moon will overplay the free hand Trump has given him this week.

It is true that Moon’s approval rating exceeds 80%. But it is also true that Moon only won with 41% of the vote. Moon has done little domestically to justify an astonishing doubling of his approval rating in just a year. His current rating is almost certainly due to South Koreans‘ tremendous fear of Trump’s 2017 rhetoric. By the time of the Olympics, South Koreans feared Trump more than Kim. But I wonder how durable that support will be as Trump fades away.

Had the centrist and conservative candidates last year collaborated, Moon would not be president. There is a deep reservoir of nationalist, conservative, Christian, and pro-American thinking in South Korea opposed to d¤tente. I fear a dramatic, extremely generous Moon offer to North Korea may provoke a civil backlash. In the same way that a million centrist and leftist South Koreans hit the streets last year to bring down Park Geun Hye, I could see similar street mobilizations to block a Moon deal.

Moon‘s path to a North Korean deal is now easer. Trump has dropped the issue. But Moon should be cautious of a pursuing a revolution in North Korea policy. South Korea is still a deeply divided society on North Korea, and Moon will need to win over at least moderate conservative voters who fear the orwellian North.

Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University. More of his work may be found at his website,AsianSecurityBlog.wordpress.com.