News of the Trump-Kim Summit has dominated international coverage since its abrupt announcement in early March. This U.S.-Korean détente comes after a tumultuous 2017 that witnessed a trading of insults and threats between the two countries’ leaders and an atmosphere of increasing tension. The shift in tone and relations occurred after an about-face from Kim Jong-Un in his New Year’s speech, where he raised the prospect of negotiations, and following deft maneuvering by South Korean President Moon to use the 2018 Winter Olympics to launch a dialogue and new relationship.

But what is really at stake in any North Korean negotiation? Many observers may view the issue narrowly and believe the stakes are solely defense from North Korean nuclear weapons. However that view misses the other equally – perhaps more – important half. What’s really at stake? The future of East Asia.

The Stakeholders

It is no easy task to juggle the competing interests of the multiple stake holders in the North Korean negotiations and the East Asian geopolitics as a whole. Key players include: China, the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and to a lesser extent Russia. While a case can be made that all East Asian nations are stake holders in the outcome of a North Korean negotiation, these six are the main heavyweights in determining an outcome on the Korean peninsula.

Some background helps: The East Asian region – and the Indo-Pacific as a whole – has taken on an outsized role in today’s international affairs because of two main reasons: 1) A major portion of this century’s economic growth will occur here, leading many to call this the Asian Century; and 2) China’s rise to Superpower status and its challenges to U.S. primacy make East Asia a test case of outcomes from the potential collapse of U.S. hegemony and the rise of Chinese illiberal hegemony. Within this framework, Korean negotiations, while significant, only represent a single move in a larger game.

Everyone has interests

How influential and impactful? To answer – given all the moving pieces – it is important to discern each nation’s vital interests surrounding the North Korean summit and the likely subsequent negotiations.

United States: As stated, the U.S. must balance potential concessions to North Korea in upcoming negotiations with its overriding interest to maintain an influential, long-term presence in Asia, (whether one sees this as maintaining U.S. hegemony or playing off-shore balancer is another discussion). The U.S. influence in East Asia comes in the form of maintaining significant military assets, including the tens of thousands of troops deployed in South Korea, Japan, strategic bombers located in Guam, strengthening existing regional alliances and security ties, and much more. Should the U.S. focus too narrowly on North Korean security concerns and bargain away its substantial footprint in the region, that would be just as catastrophic as war on the Korean peninsula.

China: China’s interests can be divided into the internal and external. China’s, and by extension Xi Jinping’s, internal interests are to maintain domestic political stability and continue China’s extensive economic growth. Externally, China is doggedly pursuing regional hegemony that requires bolstering its own security and decreasing U.S. influence in the region.

The minutia of these interests is more nuanced than at first glance. In regard to North Korea, China wants to simultaneously prevent two “doomsday” scenarios. The first would be a North Korean regime collapse, which lead to thousands if not millions of refugees pouring into China, threatening internal disruption and domestic political destabilization. The second doomsday scenario would be a unified, democratic Korea with a security guarantee by the United States and U.S. troops placed on China’s doorstep.

Aside from these doomsday outcomes, China is also wary of Japan and South Korea building their own nuclear capabilities that would threaten Chinese security and regional dominance. China would also like to see South Korea reduce its reliance on the U.S. military for security – since U.S. military assets deployed under the pretense of North Korean threats can be used against China –  and gradually bring the South under Chinese influence.

While not a complete picture of China’s concerns and interests (e.g. I do not discuss nuclear fallout on China’s border in case of NK-U.S. war), this description of interests does offer a template for understanding China’s guiding principles.

Japan: As a Great Power, Japan does have significant ability to shape events within the region. Of course, this power is substantially reduced by Japan’s lack of offensive capable military and its reliance on the United States for security. On a geopolitical level, Japan fears a Chinese-dominated East Asia and wants America to stay engaged as a counter-weight to Chinese influence. The Japanese will view any outcome that leads to decreased American influence in the region poorly.

Japan’s security concerns regarding North Korea largely concern the North’s ability to deliver a nuclear payload to the Japanese homeland. While Americans have only recently felt threatened by Kim Jong-Un’s development of inter-continental ballistic missiles, the Japanese have been under threat by Kim’s arsenal much longer because of the countries’ geographical proximity. Because of this, Japan has been avid lobbyist of the Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Denuclearization (CVID) that the Trump administration champions. Japan believes CVID is the best guarantee of Japanese security and consequently views the upcoming Trump-Kim meeting with intense skepticism and caution. A worst case scenario for Japan would be Trump’s settling for a deal that dismantles and freezes North Korea’s long range missile program (protecting the U.S. homeland) but leaves the North’s nuclear arsenal and other remaining missiles untouched.

For Japan, another extremely important internal political issue remains: North Korea has abducted and holds hostage a number of Japanese citizens. For the Japanese public, getting the North Koreans to return these hostages is paramount. As a result, CVID and a release of hostages in North Korea are Japan’s two main pillars of concern in any North Korean negotiation.

South Korea: South Korea has experienced remarkable growth since its integration into the world economy began to take off in the 1960sand can now sufficiently consider itself a middle power. As North Korea’s next door neighbor, the South is painfully aware that it would be the battlefield of any NK-U.S. conflict. With Seoul within range of North Korean artillery, any conflict would render hundreds of thousands to millions dead within the first days. Obviously, South Korea’s overriding interest is to prevent such a war from occurring. If only life were so simple.

Given the immense uncertainty surrounding everything Korea, it is important to understand the various – often conflicting – underlying forces at work. First is whether South Korea in fact would want to reunify with the North (assuming that possibility, which last occurred before the Cold War, exists). Given the shared history and connections, a widespread yearning for unification is believed to exist. Unification on an emotional level is easy to support, but the reality of integrating North Korean citizens into South Korea and developing the North’s backwards economy would be no easy task. One has to only glance at the disparity between South Korea’s GDP per capita of $27,538.81 vs. North Korea’s GDP per capita of $583 to comprehend the enormity of the challenge.

Further, South Korean domestic politics will constrain President Moon’s actions. A simplification of the South Korea’s two parties (Democrat and Liberty) is as follows: Current President Moon Jae-in is a member of the Democratic Party. Traditionally, the Democrats have championed more conciliatory policies towards the North – moves that often come at the expense of the U.S.-South Korean relationship. In contrast the Liberty Party represents that conservative movement within Korea and has advocated more hawkish positions towards the North. The Liberty Party greatly values South Korea’s security relationship with the United States and views any retrenchment with suspicion. The prospect of a successful resolution to the North Korean nuclear dilemma (i.e. normalization of relations with North Korea and some form of denuclearization) has forced all countries – especially South Korea –  to evaluate potential changes in their security relationships. Watch for South Korean conservatives to put enormous pressure, as they have been, on Moon to maintain a significant U.S.-South Korean security relationship. Moon’s domestic constraints greatly reduce his ability to drastically reshuffle South Korea’s foreign policy.

North Korea: North Korea is an anachronistic remnant of the Cold War. Its inner workings remain an enigma.  Given this, we know that Kim’s greatest interest is regime survival. His unrelenting quest for nuclear weapons served as a guarantee from outside intervention. His purge and reshuffling of the North Korean elite to ensure personal loyalty reflects his real or perceived paranoia of a coup. For Kim, regime survival is everything; ensuring it is paramount.

It is also important to understand how Kim has changed the regime. Kim Jong-Un is young and was educated abroad. He is the first North Korea ruler to have not experienced the Korean War. Further, viewing Kim Jong-Un as an identical continuation of his father is a mistake. Kim understands his nation is greatly underdeveloped and an international pariah. When meeting with President Moon-Jae in, Kim invited Moon to visit the North but joked that Moon should fly rather than take the train since the North’s rails are in such poor shape. Most importantly, Kim – through speeches to the North Korean public – emphasized economic improvements and downplayed the role of nuclear weapons. Kim has effectively begun shifting the legitimacy of his regime towards economic growth rather than solely placing legitimacy on security and the pursuit of nuclear weapons. This shift in the basis for Kim’s regime legitimacy supports the belief that he truly wants to make a deal with the United States.

Similar to President Moon in the South, Kim Jong-Un must face his own domestic politics. To understand this, one first must understand the position of the North Korean elite, a group comprised of military leaders, politicians, scientists. Many of the elite are highly skeptical of any attempt of denuclearization. This skepticism comes from two places: First, they believe that nuclear weapons are the only true security guarantee and only obstacle stopping the United States and its allies from attacking. Second, if the North were to denuclearize, many members of the elite would lose influence and status as the economic prioritization would give rise to a new elite. The existing elites’ fear of displacement and loss of status only adds to the already immense pressure Kim Jong-Un faces in determining whether to accept any form of denuclearization.

Russia: Russia has been notably absent from this piece (and one could say from the negotiations themselves). Given Russia’s shared border with North Korean, role in previous peace talks, and their shared communist history, Russia does have some role to play in the conflict. Russia – and by extension Putin – is largely interested in elevating Russia to Great Power status with a demonstrated ability to exercise power anywhere in the world (see Russia’s growing Middle East influence, for example). Following that trend, Putin will continue deploying Russian military assets abroad to project power and will use the Korean crisis as a way to secure and maintain naval access to the Pacific Ocean. Putin will also view power in zero-sum terms and see any reduced U.S. presence in Asia as an opening for Russia to extend its own influence. Consequently, Russia will attempt to make the Korean crisis as expensive to the United States as possible by giving aid to North Korea to weaken the potency of sanctions and give Korea much needed currency. In short, expect Putin to play spoiler role insofar as it serves Russian interests.Lastly, to maintain an image of a Great Power, Russia will almost certainly demand a seat at the table, however insignificant its role, for any formal ending to the Korean crisis.

Hoping for the best but preparing the worst

Of course, no peaceful resolution is guaranteed. Large gaps remain in mutual understanding of terms such as “denuclearization” and “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

The United States has maintained denuclearization to mean unilateral CVID by North Korea and viewed denuclearization of the peninsula through a narrow lens that solely encompasses North and South Korea as nuclear powers. In contrast, Kim – while now seeing himself as a legitimate nuclear power – has postured denuclearization to come in the form of an arms control treaty with the United States and arguing that complete North Korean denuclearization would only occur with complete denuclearization by the Americans (yes “complete” complete). Further, Kim has sought to define “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” to include assets that range from nuclear submarines that the United States hover around the peninsula to the strategic bombers located in Guam.  With such large gaps in key terms and time on the North Korean’s side, war remains a very real possibility.

Finally, two other items that one should be cognizant of to fully understand Korea and the summit context:

1. The Japan-South Korea relationship is not as warm and fuzzy as one might imagine. Japanese atrocities during World War II (including Korean comfort women) and Japan’s former imperialism weigh heavily in Korean historical memory. Further, on a more tangible level, territorial disputes remain between South Korea and Japan with both claiming the Liancourt Rocks. The politics of this dispute were even on display in the famous Moon-Kim summit when the Liancourt Rocks were included on the cakeof the Korean peninsula shared by the two leaders. Given these grievances and the importance of this alliance to America, the United States will have to ensure continued cooperation between the two nations even after the North Korean problem is solved and no longer unites the two.
2. China and North Korea do have a mutual defense treaty that was signed in 1961 and will expire in 2021. Do not however expect China to risk its own reputation and vital interests to honor the treaty. China has already stated that in the event North Korea “initiates conflict” (an ambiguous, purposefully open-ended term) it will not abide by the treaty obligations. In short, be skeptical of any reference to the treaty – China will act in its interests whether in accordance with the treaty or not.

The U.S.-North Korea is being presented to the American public as a simple, straight-forward discussion between two (maybe three) countries who just months ago were at the brink of war. Now, they’re told, peace is just a handshake away.

In fact, any resolution to the Korean crisis will be fraught with difficult negotiations and guaranteed to leave some unhappy. While success for the United States will be defined by its ability to reduce or eliminate North Korea’s nuclear program, any accurate definition of success will incorporate resulting changes to the strategic landscape in East Asia.