According to the present day international system, It is the good time of summitry.Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan and US President Donald Trump met the European counterparts as part of the G20 where in the rest intended to stem the tide of rising America First doctrine along with the pricey protectionism which has been rebooted by the adventurous American President.

Summitry or not, antagonism and prevarications might mar another set of negotiations which are very crucially juxtaposed with the East Asian BOP system with much wider ramifications for the rest of the international system. It is the unique and the feisty phantasmagorical quality of the talks and the twin proud palavers which make the negotiations between Trump and youngling communist dictator Kim Jong-Un a quick stand-out diplomatic one-up act. It is no more “the theatre of the absurd” as both the state heads are making an attempt to rise above the skullduggery witnessed in the past half a year and more. Either the summitry par excellence could have been negated by the previous threats of a walkout by Trump or a refusal by Kim to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula could have acted as a precursor element to a diplomatic fiasco. These were the key observations which were being bandied about in the context of the high-wire summitry and the mother of all summits between the two state heads who were at loggerheads not so long ago. The positive fallout is that the talks have ended with a promise at the Capella hotel which might have a plaque in the future bearing testimony to the summitry akin to the flick, Independence Day, which showcases a similar plaque bearing the words, “ Mankind came here in peace”.

Trump postulated and Kim acquiesced. What is going to be the cost of disarmament in the besieged Peninsula was one of the pertinent posers while the one-to-one talks were on the anvil and even when both the leaders lived a “fantasy” and went ahead with the negotiations. Already “a-without-the-aides” five hours were spent in Sentosa Island in Singapore and Trump contended that it is all a sage camaraderie through and through. The entire world was keeping its fingers crossed. Thus, the talks were very unusually pleasant without the blistering forecasts of the day which prognosticate the confrontationist streaks in both the leaders. It was the bluster and the spectacle of sparring, which formed the key conditionality of the relationship and the avidly followed verbal bouts between them. The ease with which both the state heads, with one reflecting the most powerful nation state on the face of the Earth and the other representing a crank and prank ridden spectacle of a policy maker, made good of the bout is exemplary. The Americans have normally stayed away from entangling alliances but this bout of diplomacy in Singapore was facilitated after a great deal of spade work by the American establishment, and, the strivings of the Chinese counterpart too. Of all talking spectacles, Kim went in a royal train to meet his Chinese counterpart before the tete-a-tete with the American President in Singapore.

In the city citadel of Singapore, it has been a “felt and a sentimentally touching exchange” between Trump and Kim. The joint declaration which emerged out of the exchanges was of “a surprisingly ordinary nature” in the light of the kind of sparking denouement which was expected in the aftermath of the talks. There is as expected no well-delineated and well-defined agreement on the theme of the Peninsular disarmament and the declaration is sugar-coated with a filial understanding of peace and friendship. What are the takeaways in the talks? It was a necessity that a “cooling off” period was attained by the region in the light of the future of US umbrella states of the order of Japan and South Korea and also for the betterment of the politically confrontationist clime of the region. Also, the initialising was well orchestrated with the meet between the two leaders of North and South Korea’s with the visage of the leaders standing partitioned by an elevated platform of concrete with gravel lying strewn all across the floor. It was a symbolic image of the roughshod manner in which the negotiations were rebooted in the Korean quagmire. The Guardian reports in its naturally critical and acerbic manner that “We must be clear-eyed on what a diplomatic success with North Korea looks like, that would be “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula. It is imperative that we actually get action here, not just photo ops,”

A minority leader in the US Senate informs that there are no details in Trump’s signed statement about the definition of “complete denuclearisation. Unfortunately, the entire document is short on details. It is worrisome, very worrisome that this joint statement is so imprecise.”

This palaver about “worrisomeness” emanating out of the democratic stable is quite a continuation of the irrepressible takes on Trump’s so-called erratic foreign policy idiom. It is definitely a first on response which actually and realistically verges on to become one of the major foreign policy coups of the Trump establishment. The opposition will react anyhow. Still, the non-proliferation plank of the quintessential streak can come much later after the trust deficit has been tided over between the open and the closed world. The China factor too bears a weight, wherein the efficacy of the Chinese support to North Korea has always been a destabilising element in the regional scenario. No quick fix solutions are probable in the heat of the “diplomatic moment,” wherein the world had reached a state of irreversible Armageddon in the light of the “menacing-flying-over-the-seas” missiles of the North Korean denomination. It would be unreasonable to blame the American intransigence and the larger role in the besieged Peninsula. General Douglas Macarthur would be a sad personage today and squirming in his grave wherein he demanded that President Truman opened the floodgates of an all-out military aggression during the original war in the Korean peninsula in the early part of the decade in the fifties, a freedom run which President Truman did not allow for him. The Chinese aggression was a cause of mayhem across the Yalu river in the truncated Peninsula. Another pathway open for the American President living true to the philanthropist streak of the US foreign policy would be to attempt a normalisation of relations between both the estranged Koreas. The talks might be hurt in the longer run by the doomsday prevarications of the North Korean satrap-dynasty, but still the easing of tensions and the cooling of temperature between the nations can be an ideal platform for a historic East Asian détente. The Americans have a role to play where they can stamp their regulatory role and zeal over a troubled Korea with their patience and diplomatic sanity and the accompaniment of other willing powers in the region and in other sections of the world polity. The US President has a destiny to fulfil even if it may require becoming a compromising peacenik.

(The writer teaches International Relations at Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi)

Writer: Manan Dwivedi

Courtesy: The Pioneer

According to the present day international system, It is the good time of summitry.Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan and US President Donald Trump met the European counterparts as part of the G20 where in the rest intended to stem the tide of rising America First doctrine along with the pricey protectionism which has been rebooted by the adventurous American President.

Summitry or not, antagonism and prevarications might mar another set of negotiations which are very crucially juxtaposed with the East Asian BOP system with much wider ramifications for the rest of the international system. It is the unique and the feisty phantasmagorical quality of the talks and the twin proud palavers which make the negotiations between Trump and youngling communist dictator Kim Jong-Un a quick stand-out diplomatic one-up act. It is no more “the theatre of the absurd” as both the state heads are making an attempt to rise above the skullduggery witnessed in the past half a year and more. Either the summitry par excellence could have been negated by the previous threats of a walkout by Trump or a refusal by Kim to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula could have acted as a precursor element to a diplomatic fiasco. These were the key observations which were being bandied about in the context of the high-wire summitry and the mother of all summits between the two state heads who were at loggerheads not so long ago. The positive fallout is that the talks have ended with a promise at the Capella hotel which might have a plaque in the future bearing testimony to the summitry akin to the flick, Independence Day, which showcases a similar plaque bearing the words, “ Mankind came here in peace”.

Trump postulated and Kim acquiesced. What is going to be the cost of disarmament in the besieged Peninsula was one of the pertinent posers while the one-to-one talks were on the anvil and even when both the leaders lived a “fantasy” and went ahead with the negotiations. Already “a-without-the-aides” five hours were spent in Sentosa Island in Singapore and Trump contended that it is all a sage camaraderie through and through. The entire world was keeping its fingers crossed. Thus, the talks were very unusually pleasant without the blistering forecasts of the day which prognosticate the confrontationist streaks in both the leaders. It was the bluster and the spectacle of sparring, which formed the key conditionality of the relationship and the avidly followed verbal bouts between them. The ease with which both the state heads, with one reflecting the most powerful nation state on the face of the Earth and the other representing a crank and prank ridden spectacle of a policy maker, made good of the bout is exemplary. The Americans have normally stayed away from entangling alliances but this bout of diplomacy in Singapore was facilitated after a great deal of spade work by the American establishment, and, the strivings of the Chinese counterpart too. Of all talking spectacles, Kim went in a royal train to meet his Chinese counterpart before the tete-a-tete with the American President in Singapore.

In the city citadel of Singapore, it has been a “felt and a sentimentally touching exchange” between Trump and Kim. The joint declaration which emerged out of the exchanges was of “a surprisingly ordinary nature” in the light of the kind of sparking denouement which was expected in the aftermath of the talks. There is as expected no well-delineated and well-defined agreement on the theme of the Peninsular disarmament and the declaration is sugar-coated with a filial understanding of peace and friendship. What are the takeaways in the talks? It was a necessity that a “cooling off” period was attained by the region in the light of the future of US umbrella states of the order of Japan and South Korea and also for the betterment of the politically confrontationist clime of the region. Also, the initialising was well orchestrated with the meet between the two leaders of North and South Korea’s with the visage of the leaders standing partitioned by an elevated platform of concrete with gravel lying strewn all across the floor. It was a symbolic image of the roughshod manner in which the negotiations were rebooted in the Korean quagmire. The Guardian reports in its naturally critical and acerbic manner that “We must be clear-eyed on what a diplomatic success with North Korea looks like, that would be “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula. It is imperative that we actually get action here, not just photo ops,”

A minority leader in the US Senate informs that there are no details in Trump’s signed statement about the definition of “complete denuclearisation. Unfortunately, the entire document is short on details. It is worrisome, very worrisome that this joint statement is so imprecise.”

This palaver about “worrisomeness” emanating out of the democratic stable is quite a continuation of the irrepressible takes on Trump’s so-called erratic foreign policy idiom. It is definitely a first on response which actually and realistically verges on to become one of the major foreign policy coups of the Trump establishment. The opposition will react anyhow. Still, the non-proliferation plank of the quintessential streak can come much later after the trust deficit has been tided over between the open and the closed world. The China factor too bears a weight, wherein the efficacy of the Chinese support to North Korea has always been a destabilising element in the regional scenario. No quick fix solutions are probable in the heat of the “diplomatic moment,” wherein the world had reached a state of irreversible Armageddon in the light of the “menacing-flying-over-the-seas” missiles of the North Korean denomination. It would be unreasonable to blame the American intransigence and the larger role in the besieged Peninsula. General Douglas Macarthur would be a sad personage today and squirming in his grave wherein he demanded that President Truman opened the floodgates of an all-out military aggression during the original war in the Korean peninsula in the early part of the decade in the fifties, a freedom run which President Truman did not allow for him. The Chinese aggression was a cause of mayhem across the Yalu river in the truncated Peninsula. Another pathway open for the American President living true to the philanthropist streak of the US foreign policy would be to attempt a normalisation of relations between both the estranged Koreas. The talks might be hurt in the longer run by the doomsday prevarications of the North Korean satrap-dynasty, but still the easing of tensions and the cooling of temperature between the nations can be an ideal platform for a historic East Asian détente. The Americans have a role to play where they can stamp their regulatory role and zeal over a troubled Korea with their patience and diplomatic sanity and the accompaniment of other willing powers in the region and in other sections of the world polity. The US President has a destiny to fulfil even if it may require becoming a compromising peacenik.

(The writer teaches International Relations at Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi)

Writer: Manan Dwivedi

Courtesy: The Pioneer