For several days, US Vice President Mike Pence shared the Olympic stage with a high-profile member of North Korea’s Kim dynasty, Kim Yo-jong. Yo-jong, the younger sister of Kim Jong-un, was the first member of the Kim dynasty to visit the South in decades, and her presence transfixed TV audiences around the world.
Vice President Pence had originally been scheduled to meet with Kim Yo-jong and her delegation from the North. This in itself is an interesting revelation, because it suggests that, despite the sanctions, UN posturing, and threats of a ‘bloody nose,’ the US administration is still angling for a negotiated de-escalation should the stars align that way. But the talks never materialized. Two hours before they were supposed to take place, Yo-jong pulled out of the meeting.
For Yo-jong, the mission was already accomplished: North Korea had been presented as a status-quo world power at the games, and North-South dialogue had veered back toward the Peninsula thanks in part to a high-profile snub of the US administration.
Impact
The North’s strategy at work. The Kim regime endgame is to remove the financial constraints on its economy and maintain its missile and nuclear programs, which it views as necessary to ensure its future survival. In the process it wants to localize the negotiations whenever possible, attempting to exclude or at least minimize the powerful United States. This is obviously a tall ask, but the regime can count on two factors in its favor over the short-term: indirect support from the Chinese government, which wants to see the crisis deescalated and US influence marginalized, and the rise of President Moon Jae-in, who has struck a markedly more consolatory tone with the North than his predecessor.
Thus the Pence snub can be viewed as an unqualified, if likely fleeting win for the North Korean regime. The Kim Yo-jong Olympic visit has been presented as proof that the road to North-South reconciliation doesn’t necessarily run through Washington. The snub also came with an invitation for South Korea President Moon Jae-in to visit the North “at a convenient time,” suggesting that there will be more confidence-building measures to come from both sides in the near future.
It remains to be seen whether one of these measures will be the South cancelling or delaying joint US military exercises scheduled for April. Doing so would be a major snub to the Trump administration, which for its part has been stressing the inviolability of the US-ROK alliance at every turn.
