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SEOUL: Donald Trump’s fluctuating relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has turned from fire and fury to love letters, but Pyongyang’s vision of his rival is uncompromising: Joe Biden is a “mad dog” who “must be beaten to death. “
Despite stalled talks, Trump, who is touting his personal relationship with Kim, has vowed to make deals with North Korea “very quickly” if he wins a second term on November 3.
But if the former Democratic vice president is elected, he will take a completely different approach, analysts and officials say.
Pyongyang despises Biden for his role in the Obama administration, which adopted a policy of “strategic patience,” refusing to enter into relations with North Korea unless it offered concessions first or until the regime collapsed from within.
North Korea’s official news agency criticized him in its most recent references.
“Rabid dogs like Biden can hurt a lot of people if they are allowed to run,” KCNA said last year, adding: “They should be beaten to death with a stick.”
He also adapted one of Trump’s favorite insults for his rival, “Sleepy Joe.”
WATCH: Donald Trump and Joe Biden square off in final US presidential debate.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has dismissed the “photographs” of Donald Trump with Kim as a “vain project.” (Photos: AFP / Jim Bourg)
Biden accuses Trump of “emboldening” the North Korean leader and has said he will not meet Kim without preconditions.
“There will be no love letters in the Biden administration,” he declared in a reference to the diplomatic bromance between Trump and Kim.
In the final presidential debate on Thursday (October 22), Biden denounced Trump for befriending Kim, calling the North Korean leader a “bully” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
“He has talked about his good friend, who is a bully,” Biden said of Kim. “That is like saying we had a good relationship with Hitler before he invaded Europe, the rest of Europe.”
But Biden also indicated that he was willing to meet with Kim, saying his condition would be for Pyongyang to work to make the Korean peninsula “a nuclear-weapon-free zone.”
DEADLOCK TALKS
Pyongyang would be waiting for a second term from Trump, said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.
“With Joe Biden, it will be a period of stagnation,” Lankov told AFP.
“If Donald Trump is re-elected, they will be good for a while in the hope that they can get some serious concessions out of him.
A fierce war of words between Kim and Trump raised tensions and fears of conflict in 2017.
But a swift diplomatic rapprochement ensued, with Trump becoming the first sitting US president to meet with a North Korean leader at a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018.
The two leaders met twice more, and Trump repeatedly proclaimed their friendship, although nuclear negotiations remain stalled.
And Pyongyang has continued to develop and improve its arsenal, displaying a variety of new weapons, including a huge new ICBM, at a military parade this month marking the 75th anniversary of its ruling party.
Chung Min Lee, principal investigator for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, credited Trump for his effort to meet with Kim, but added: “The problem is what he did with him.”
The motivations of the president of the United States were wrong, he said in a video conference.
“Trump was obsessed with the idea that Kim Jong Un was going to somehow reinforce his image at home as the president of the United States who brought peace to the Korean people.”
TEST TIME?
Biden has dismissed the “photographs” of Trump with Kim as a “vanity project,” telling the New York Times that he would only meet with the North Korean leader with “a real strategy that moves the ball toward denuclearization.”
A Biden presidency would signal a return to more normal diplomatic processes, said Lee Soo-hyuck, South Korea’s ambassador to the US, with painstaking negotiations conducted at lower levels rather than top leaders trying to get there. to a global agreement in a few hours. of talks.
Despite the stalled talks, Donald Trump has promised to reach agreements with North Korea “very quickly” if he wins a second term on November 3 (Photo: AFP / Brendan Smialowski).
Biden’s seasoned foreign policy and security advisers held high-level positions in the Obama administration, he told lawmakers.
“Rather than a top-down approach, I hope to see revised policies and proposals at the working level that are approved by the president.”
Pyongyang will closely monitor the elections, analysts say, contemplating the best time to test its latest missile.
If Biden takes over the White House, the beginning of 2021 will be “a sensible time,” said Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment.
The launch would act as a reminder that going back to “the old Obama policy” will only mean “our capabilities will continue to expand,” he added.
Trump’s re-election may delay an ICB test, analysts said, but they did not rule out the prospect entirely.
“They will have everything ready for testing,” Lankov said.
“And if they don’t get the deal they expect, they’ll do a lot of testing.”
