The two sides are already heavily invested in a diplomatic process with no dearth of activity on and around the peninsula. In the space of a fortnight, Kim flew to China to meet President Xi Jinping, Pompeo landed in Pyongyang to pin down details in advance of the summit, Moon and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang showed up in Tokyo for a three-way summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and, this week, Moon touched down in Washington, briefing Trump on the takeaways from his own summitry with Kim. 

While the two Koreas pulled off a choreographed round of political theatre at Panmunjom last month, Moon needs Trump to succeed in reaching a denuclearisation scenario with Kim to realise his own agenda of reconciliation and economic cooperation. More broadly, what is currently taking place among and between the two Koreas, the US and China is a diplomatic dance we haven’t seen before, a spectacle akin to “tag-team” diplomacy. But unlike wrestling, the party outside the ring may have more clout than the one inside. 

This is clearly the case with China and North Korea. If and when Kim goes mano a mano with Trump, he will also carry water for Xi, given their complementary goals reflected in Kim’s two pre-summit visits to China. While Kim needs China in its corner as a backup, as well as Xi’s assent in pursuing a strategy for phased denuclearisation, China needs North Korea as a buffer and will not jeopardise Pyongyang’s survival by turning the last screw on economic sanctions. Paradoxically, however, an agreement between the US and North Korea on denuclearisation would create geopolitical space for the North to pursue new relationships, potentially to China’s disadvantage. 

Moreover, the two tag teams are asymmetric – the national interests of the US and South Korea do not align as seamlessly as Beijing and Pyongyang’s. While Washington and Seoul are committed to deterring and defending against future North Korean provocations, South Korea is equally committed to advancing the agenda of reconciliation, as outlined in the Panmunjom Declaration. 

The US, though, is primarily focused on the threat posed by the North as a nuclear outlier, with diplomatic normalisation a secondary consideration. In the short term, US-South Korean cooperation will turn principally on whether Washington’s priority of denuclearisation and Seoul’s reconciliation with the North are complementary or contradictory. In the longer term, the challenge is to articulate a new vision and security framework for Korea beyond deterrence and defence.