North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Go Myong-hyun: US-ROK talks and North Korea’s diplomatic theater in Beijing

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

In this episode, Go Myong-hyun of Seoul’s Institute for National Security Strategy returns to the podcast to assess the recent summit between South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump. He also looks ahead to Kim Jong Un’s expected appearance in Beijing on Sept. 3 for a Victory Day parade marking the […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast, available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NKNews website at NKNews.org slash private-feed. Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jacko's Wetsuit, and this episode is being recorded by Streamyard on Saturday, the 30th of August 2025. And I'm joined here by a returning guest. And that's Dr. Gaw Myeong-Hun, and he's the director of the Department of Security Strategy Studies at the Institute for National Security Strategy, or INSS, one of the big think tanks here in Seoul.

Previously, he was at the Institute for Security and Development Policy, working on hybrid threats in Northeast Asia and the international coordination to counter them. And prior to that, he was a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy. And Dr. Gore is with us today to discuss last week's Lee Trump Summit, and next week, week's trip by Kim Jong-un to Beijing for the September 3rd Victory Day parade to mark the 8th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. The last time Dr. Gore was on this podcast was almost exactly six years ago in August 2019 on episode 92. Welcome back, Dr. Gore. Well, thanks for having me. Six years. It's great to have you again. If you could pick one signal from the Donald Trump, E.J. Miong summit that Pyongyang will fixate on, what is it?

why does it matter for the next three months? Well, I think one of the signs that Kim Jong was looking for was probably not so much of whether President Trump or President Lee was willing to sit down with him to discuss about Korean Peninsula matters. It was probably whether President Trump and President Lee had changed their positions regarding North Korea's position on the group. We know that the North Koreans had poor. Neutralization is the biggest one for him, is it?

No, it's really about the nuclearization, but the flip side of that is whether North Korea will be allowed to keep his nuclear weapons. We recognize as such, right? As a nuclear power. And I think that's the signal or sign that Kim Jong-un was looking for the dream. And probably to his disappointment, that didn't come out. In fact, President Lee said something very strong about. North Korea's denuclearization. He was very, I would say, speaking to, in fact, he sounded almost as a consultative president.

He highlighted the need for the denuclearization of North Korea, above, in my view, above the need for engagement. That's interesting. Yeah. But of course, Kim Jong-un could, can ignore President E.J.M. Well, what really matters is what Donald Trump says. Did Donald Trump say anything about denuclearization? No, exactly.

Exactly. So he didn't say anything about it, but then he didn't, at the same time, he didn't say anything about the Reconnais and North Korea's nuclear power, right? So I think people often say President Trump is kind of random when he says, things are such a stab like a North Korean conversation, Ukraine or NATO. But in my view, in President Trump has been very consistent in the idea in this world. But he makes a right sound about the recognizing North Korea as nuclear, sorry, right sound is actually a bad term here. He pretends as if, yeah, exactly. So he pretends as if he would recognize the North Korea as nuclear power, which probably excites Kim Jong-in a lot. But he never does that. He always stays, I think, within this side of a reason or like the mainstream view of North Korea,

which is that North Korea shouldn't be rewarded for having developed and was illegally, even though he recognized North Korea as an important countercounter for the stability of the Korean Peninsula. So, and I think that, but he had didn't change from that position at all, in my view. Okay, so basically Kim Jong-un did not get the sign that he wanted from the summit, right? Yeah, I think so. I think that came out, I mean, the reaction to that, I think, came out when, you know, those Koreans reacted, not to present Trump, to presently figure they are objective to present these i think they do an objective to present the cartels as a poor but aggressive country i think that's how we put it and they objected to it

and then i think the language that used was pretty aggressive and i think it's a reflection of how they supported they right just before the summit donald trump posted on on truth social this a mysterious message, first of all, in all caps, what is going on in South Korea, and then seems like a purge or revolution. We can't have that and do business there. It didn't seem to be brought up during the meeting itself, but what did you make of that post? What was he trying to signal to Seoul and to his own base? Yeah, that was a little bit of drama, I think, pre-summit, the created tension, and I think that made it a whole message even more interesting. then you should have should have but i think there's no drama at the end of the day right i mean

the meeting went well the visiting was visceral smooth uh but i think a president trump did it i think for two reasons i think i think president lee uh said it himself bich at c s as following his meeting with president trump at the overall office uh he explained uh that in his view president trump did it because he's a president trump is a consummate negotiator he's a deal maker And I think that he knew that there's some political problems going on in South Korea regarding the expanding investigation into the imposition of Marshall Law in Seoul last year. So I think he wanted to bring that up as a way to pressure presently.

Maybe there was some sort of a last-minute negotiation going on between South Korea and the United States at the same time. And maybe Trump wanted to get an upper hand. And perhaps that worked, given the fact. that the meeting between leaders went down really well. But I think that probably was a very under-pragmatic, but not really reflecting any the line, deep tension between the two countries. Another one is that maybe President Trump, in addition to using this posting as a negotiation tool, perhaps he also wanted to send a message to the mega-cloud, this corner of the US

mega crowd, that's very much interested in what's going on in the United States. This corner is very important because given the posting by the influential mega influencers, such as Laura Rumor, Steve Anon, they all have some sort of interest in what's going on in South Korea. Given the fact that they, I mean, this influential characters or personalities in the mega movement, discussed about what's going on in Korea as being a slow decover of the country by the pro-China, you know, powers, forces in the country. You know, President Trump would have to react when he's really elected South Korean president and then his election was a product of what had happened last year.

So in that sense, I think there's a subtle need of pressure on President Trump to think this is, I think that was the reason why he made a remark showing to the mega crowd that he was, he knew what was going on and about their concerns. So he was responding to it. But that at the end of the day didn't lead to any consequential change in his attitude towards presently. You've said a couple of times already that the summit went well. And I wonder, was it enough for E. Jémyong just to have a non-disaster in the way that Volodymyr Zelensky had in February's visit to the White House in order to call this summit a success? That's a good question. I think it really depends on how you look at it. I think it really

depends on what kind of baseline expectations we had going into the summit. And I think the basic expectation about this person was not that high to begin right. There's all this apprehension about President Trump's and Mather Krauss' view of presently, being pro-Chinese and all that. And there's a truck record of the ruling party of personalities saying, stating something pro-China and also criticizing the United States quite often. So there's this application that if presently came to Washington and President Trump would go, would do some random antics of criticizing presently, then the whole meeting will go south. So if that was the biggest source of concern, then that didn't happen.

And I think this is one of the reasons why many observers believe this meeting has been a major success. But if you evaluate the meeting using the criteria or normal criteria of any summit of this kind, yeah, many things are very short, obviously. There's no joint statement for the meeting. still there's no joint statement of the meeting it's been almost a week and and there's no i mean there are many contentious issues uh in the bilateral relations we know going into the meeting that the u.s side was pressure in south korea to detail out what kind of investments they had in mind for in the united states and how was the the role of the u.s government in deciding where this so-called investment fund would be, you know, how would have to use.

So that, and also there's no discussion whatsoever about the burden sharing. Right. You know, President Trump wants South Korea to spend way more on defense for perhaps up to 5% of GDP. And also the most important part in my view, which is what kind of policy in United States expects in regards to China, what kind of rule of South Korean military would have in case of contingency in the Indo-Pacific region. So none of these issues came up or discussed in this meeting. So that's been, again, these issues are still alive.

And I think we left to be discussed. So yes, it really depends on what kind of criteria used to evaluate the committee of this kind. OK, let's talk about USFK and alliance issues. Trump's remark about US potential US ownership of land where U.S. bases in Korea are situated, certainly raised some eyebrows. How does that intersect with Sofa,

with host nation support talks, and with Korean domestic sensitivities? Curious to hear the rest? Become an NK News subscriber today for access to the full episode. Head to NKNews.org slash join for more information. If you're already a subscriber to NK News, you can listen to full episodes

from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NKNews website at NKNews.org slash private-feed.