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The Hanoi summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February ended without a deal or agreement. Photo: AP

Kim Jong-un ‘was shocked’ by new US list of undisclosed nuclear facilities at Hanoi summit

  • North Korean affairs expert Zhang Liangui tells forum the talks broke down because Washington changed its negotiating position at the last minute
  • Pyongyang ‘felt its expectations would not be met’, he says

The Hanoi summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump collapsed mainly because the US changed its negotiating position at the last minute, according to a Chinese expert on North Korean affairs.

Zhang Liangui, a professor of international strategic research at the Central Party School, said Kim was “shocked” at the talks in February when the US presented him with a new list of nuclear facilities that had not been disclosed by Pyongyang.

The Central Party School trains Communist Party cadres and is a think tank for top Chinese leaders.

Zhang said the new list meant the US required Pyongyang to dismantle all of its underground nuclear arms facilities. That was in addition to what had previously been discussed – destroying the plutonium and uranium-enrichment plants housed at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

“When the US side pulled out its ‘hidden’ list of undisclosed facilities, Kim Jong-un was shocked not because the US knew about its underground facilities – those sites have been reported by a number of US think tanks before – but because the North felt that its expectations of the talks would not be met,” said Zhang, who was speaking at a forum on North Korea in Beijing on Sunday organised by Dunjiao Media.

“The new demands exceeded what Stephen Biegun had presented at a talk he gave at Stanford University in January about denuclearisation [in North Korea],” Zhang said, referring to the US special representative for North Korea.

“Originally both Washington and Pyongyang had tried to keep their bottom lines from each other because neither side had made up their mind, and the earlier posturing [by Trump] was not because the US side had any technical problems [in identifying North Korea’s nuclear facilities].”

The US embassy in Beijing on Monday confirmed that Biegun is visiting the Chinese capital this week “to continue US-China coordination on policies related to North Korea”.

Zhang, who is also a researcher with the State Council Development Research Centre, said Washington’s surprise move at the Hanoi summit had changed the course of negotiations because any future talks would have to cover both publicly known and underground nuclear-related facilities in North Korea.

“Future negotiations must now cover everything – known and unknown. The talks from now on must address the real issues, and this has greatly increased the difficulty of the negotiations,” Zhang said.

“Pyongyang must now make real choices [about what it wants] and the future is uncertain,” he added.

According to Zhang, a strongly worded protest by Choe Son-hui, North Korea’s foreign vice-minister, weeks after the summit was just a “trial balloon” to see the response from different parties.

Choe blamed the US for the talks breaking down and said Pyongyang would not “yield to the US demands in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind”.

In his analysis, Zhang said Trump had sought to persuade Kim to abandon nuclear arms in exchange for lifting sanctions on the North, but the North Korean leader was influenced by his close aides who objected to accepting the US demands.

Observers have pointed out that a deal with Pyongyang would be a boost for Trump’s presidency, and last week the US leader overruled a decision by the US Treasury Department to impose new sanctions on the North.

“Those aides objected because they wanted to protect Kim and they were worried that his hold on power may be shaken if he strikes a deal with the US,” Zhang said.

The North Korean affairs expert was also concerned that the breakdown in negotiations would affect political stability in the country.

“North Korea will face uncertainty this year and become unstable – partly because of the sanctions imposed by the United Nations too,” he said.

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