What Kim wants from his meeting with Putin

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Editor's Note: Cheng Xiaohe is an associate professor at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China and a senior researcher with Pangoal Institute. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

DPRK leader Kim Jong Un has adroitly commanded international attention recently and will grab the headlines once again by visiting Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin this month.

The pending Kim-Putin meeting is long overdue. As Kim launched the summit diplomacy campaign last March, one important actor, Vladimir Putin, was left out from this dazzling diplomatic flurry. As Kim's summit diplomacy helped to change the geopolitical landscape in Northeast Asia, never-ending speculation about his imminent visit to Russia got much wilder when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Pyongyang last May and extended Putin's invitation to Kim on behalf of President Putin.

Officials attending the 8th meeting of the DPRK-Russia Intergovernmental Committee for Cooperation in Trade, Economy, Science and Technology at the People's Palace of Culture, in a photo released by KCNA in Pyongyang, the DPRK, March 22, 2018. /VCG Photo

After such speculation got dismissed repeatedly, the long-awaited summit between Kim and Putin is slated to take place very soon. Given the setback in the second Kim-Trump meeting and the subsequent simmering tension between Pyongyang and Washington, the upcoming Kim-Putin summit draws a great deal of attention.

Certainly, Kim's visit helps to fulfill one of his long-anticipated commitments and reminds the world that he attaches ultimate importance to his personal relations with Putin as well the state-to-state relations with Russia.

Kim's busy summit diplomacy was primarily designed to break the DPRK's diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions. As a result of Kim's effort, the DPRK's relations with China have recovered and regained momentum, inter-Korean relations began to enjoy hard-earned rapprochement, the DPRK and the United States, which had been locked in a deadly confrontation for more than 65 years, entered negotiations with an aim of building a new relationship. Nonetheless, the effort hit a snag when the second Kim-Trump summit failed to produce an agreement.

As Kim gave the United States a little bit more than eight months to make a bold change in order to break the stalemate on their talks, he needs to conduct face-to-face consultations with Putin, who, from Kim's perspective, dares to challenge the U.S. in Syria and Venezuela.

In their upcoming meeting, in addition to getting to know Putin personally and build a strong rapport with him, Kim may spend a significant amount of time with Putin on two major issues: the current situation on the Korean Peninsula and their bilateral economic cooperation.

People pose for a photograph with a picture of DPRK leader Kim Jung Un and U.S. President Donald Trump outside the Hanoi Opera Two house in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 28, 2019. /VCG Photo

Their talks will focus on Korea-related issues, particularly the DPRK-U.S. talks and the associated nuclear and sanctions issue. Russia's position is quite clear: on the nuclear issue, it insists on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and has endorsed some of the toughest sanctions against the DPRK in the UN Security Council in the past, but it also made it clear that denuclearization cannot be achieved at one go,

On the sanctions issue, Russia is quite sympathetic with the DPRK for the suffering caused as Russia itself has been living under a variety of sanctions imposed by western countries. As early as September 2017, Putin claimed that pursuing further sanctions against the DPRK "is useless and ineffective" since people in the country would rather eat grass than give up their nuclear program.

After DPRK took initial measures to freeze its nuclear and missile tests and blow off its nuclear test site, Russia began to advocate the lifting of UN sanctions against the country. On June 15, 2018, Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said, "A modification of the regime of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council on the DPRK can, and should be, one of the most important components of normalization in the region."

DPRK's Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyung Jun (L) and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev (front) during a meeting at the Russian Federation Council in Moscow, February 11, 2019. /VCG Photo

Last September, Russia and China jointly called for a lifting of sanctions against the DPRK in the Security Council on the grounds that "positive developments" in relations between the two Korean nations – combined with warmer U.S.-DPRK ties – should lead to sanctions relief.

No doubt about it, in their meeting, Kim will seek Putin's additional diplomatic support on the nuclear and sanctions issues and may encourage Russia to play a more active role in promoting trilateral consultation among Russia, China and DPRK, which once took place at vice-ministerial-level in Moscow last October.

Kim and Putin are expected to explore a new way to enhance their bilateral economic cooperation. Even though they maintain good political and diplomatic relations, the economic ties between the two countries are relatively weak.

In 2014, Russia officially canceled 90 percent of the DPRK's debt and predicted that bilateral trade will hit the mark of one billion U.S. dollars by the year 2020, but this ambitious target was significantly lowered to half a billion U.S. dollars in 2015. Unfortunately, the deeply-slashed number proved to be unrealistic again. According to the data offered by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, the 2015 trade volume was just 84 million U.S. dollars, less than one-third of the expected number.

As oil and labor service were put on the UN sanctions list in 2017, Russia-DPRK economic ties suffered another heavy blow.

‍DPRK leader Kim Jong Un speaks at the 5th meeting of company leaders and political instructors of the Korean People's Army in Pyongyang, March 27, 2019. /VCG Photo

Therefore, in his meeting with Putin, Kim may try to achieve three basic objectives: First, to reverse the downturn of the trade with Russia and expand the economic ties by exploring new cooperative areas allowed by the UN Security Council; second, to map out a plan for future economic cooperation in the post-sanctions era, including Russia's investment in the DPRK railway and oil pipeline projects; third, to secure humanitarian assistance, including food and medicine.

In sum, even though Kim and his government enthusiastically promote self-reliance and a self-supporting national economy, external help, materially and spiritually, is always welcome in Pyongyang. The upcoming Kim-Putin summit will render DPRK additional substantive rather than symbolic help.

In sharp contrast with the failure of the second meeting with Trump, Kim's meeting with Putin is most likely to be a success.

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