CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, June 18, 2018

Singapore Summit: Winners and losers

Confused about what happened and why at the denuclearization summit in Singapore? Here’s the key: North Korea is Red China’s vassal state on the Korean Peninsula. North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, does whatever Chinese President Xi Jinping tells Kim to do. President Xi even used one of his own aircraft to deliver Kim to Singapore.

The "real" summit, therefore, was between President Trump and President Xi. Kim Jong-un simply played the role President Xi and President Trump assigned Kim to play. Kim did it very well.

Back story: President Xi’s economy is not in good shape. President Xi and President Trump have been working behind the scenes on trade arrangements that will help President Xi stabilize his economy while, at the same, improving America’s balance of trade with China. For example, China’s 25-percent tariff on U.S-made luxury cars is now down to 15-percent.

President Xi knows North Korea’s civilian economy is on the verge of collapse because of Kim’s economic policies and because of economic sanctions imposed on North Korea by President Trump and many of our allies. President Xi does not want a hoard of starving North Koreans flooding over his border and further taxing his economy. Likewise, President Xi does not want any kind of war on the Korean Peninsula. President Xi wants North and South Korea as viable buffer states against Japan.

If President Xi can get President Trump to reduce the economic sanctions against North Korea in exchange for a denuclearized and peaceful Korean Peninsula, that’s a win for Red China and also for a host of other winners, to include the United States.

Thus, the people of North Korean won’t starve and become refugees. The people of South Korea will not lose millions of people to North Korean artillery and rocket attacks. Our military families in South Korea can stay with their loved ones. Japan can relax the pace of its nascent rearmament program.

But, for any bargain to hold, both sides must make concessions. Kim Jong-un must allow U.S. inspectors inside North Korea to watch over the dismantling of his nuclear weapons program. Kim has already halted nuclear tests, stopped firing rockets over Japan, and stopped threatening U.S. possession, Guam.

The primary win for Kim was, just like Chinese dictator Xi Jinping before him, getting to be on center stage with a sitting U.S. President. Plus, President Trump agreed to suspend the annual U.S./South Korean war games. A suspension dependent on Kim’s progress with denuclearization.

Meanwhile, U.S. and South Korean land, air, and sea forces will continue their normal training. The next joint-training war game is scheduled for nine months from now. Plenty of time to see if President Xi is getting Kim Jong-un to perform as agreed upon in Singapore. If not, the war games can easily be resumed and the economic sanctions put back into effect.

The list of winners is very long; however, the list of losers is very short. The big loser? The left-leaning U.S. mainstream media which, by either accident or design, failed to grasp and report the underlying story behind these momentous diplomatic events.

Nobel Peace Prize? How about both President Xi Jinping and President Donald J. Trump?

©2018. William Hamilton.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame. In 2015, he was named an Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Nebraska. Dr. Hamilton is the author of The Wit and Wisdom of William Hamilton: the Sage of Sheepdog Hill, Pegasus Imprimis Press (2017). "Central View," can also be seen at: www.central-view.com.

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Email: william@central-view.com