Opinion | A dual-track strategy, with Chinese involvement, is needed to secure peace on the Korean peninsula

A little more than a year ago, one of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s highest-level aides arrived at the White House with a startling message; North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposed a summit meeting with US President Donald Trump, which he accepted on the spot. This week, Moon is slated to hold another summit meeting with Trump in Washington and, this time, he is on a mission to get the peace process back on track.

The historic Trump-Kim summit in Singapore set the two countries four goals in a brief communique: the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula; working towards a lasting and stable peace regime; developing a new US-North Korea relationship, and; the return of Korean war “missing in action” remains. (To date, only the last goal has brought results, with the return of the remains of 55 US servicemen.)

If the Singapore summit agreement was vague on details of denuclearisation, the Hanoi summit left no doubt that the interlocutors were not on the same page.

Instead of focusing on the two critical goals of the Singapore summit, denuclearisation and peace, Kim, according to Trump, demanded a total lifting of sanctions but would not agree to dismantle his entire nuclear programme. (The North Koreans later challenged Trump’s account, saying Kim had only asked for some sanctions to be lifted in exchange for shutting down the main nuclear site at Yongbyon.) A third summit, which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was “confident” would take place, would be unthinkable without the ending of all fissile material production as a precondition.