and grandfather—pledging “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and a willingness to resolve issues through dialogue while expressing admiration for China’s developments in science and technological fields in order to trigger as yet unrequited Chinese hopes for North Korean economic reform.
Kim’s success in winning over Beijing was evident in Xi’s reported comment that “China sticks to the goal of denuclearization of the peninsula [using North Korea’s preferred term]” and “calls on all parties to support the improvement of inter-Korean ties, and take concrete efforts to facilitate peace talks.” The four subsequent meetings with the Chinese leader, in May and June 2018 and then in January and June 2019, undoubtedly cemented Kim’s confidence. Xi’s “all parties” construction had been used by Chinese leaders in the past, reflecting their belief that Washington is as responsible as Pyongyang for inflaming tensions. These words were almost certainly directed at Trump to condemn and discourage his return to his “fire and fury” of late 2017. Kim must have been reassured by Xi’s reported comment prior to the Singapore summit that “no matter how the international and regional situation changes, we will both firmly grasp the global development trend and the overall situation of the China-DPRK relationship, strengthen our high-level exchanges, deepen our strategic communication, and expand our exchanges and cooperation, and benefit the people of both countries and the people of all countries.” Even after North Korea’s shunning and defying Beijing for more than six years, Xi had not abandoned the nation after all.
With the wind at his back—and the expressed support of Xi and Moon—Kim had another reason to believe that he could claim a position of strength before he went to Singapore. Although the world was able to gather some insight about Kim as he engaged in diplomacy, his intentions and preferences remained opaque. But for Kim, there were tens of thousands of Donald Trump’s tweets at his disposal, along with multiple biographies and memoirs of former administration officials, and decades of statements and interviews about foreign relations and his approach to negotiations—most of which have been consistent over that time—to glean clues about his adversary. In late 2017, Kim dispatched his diplomats to query U.S. think tank experts and former officials in their work “figuring out the unconventional president’s strategy,” as The Washington Post reported. By mid-2018, Kim probably had a solid understanding of the president’s personality and mindset, based on his conversations with Xi and Moon and the handful of meetings that he and his senior officials had with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In an interview with Face the Nation after having met with Kim, Pompeo said, “He is very knowledgeable in the sense of he knows the files. He’s very capable of engaging in [a] complex set of discussions. When I ask him a question about something…there’s no notecards. It is Chairman Kim in this case interacting with me directly having a robust discussion about what the outlines of a successful negotiation between our two countries might ultimately be.”
Pompeo’s observations about Kim’s mastery of the issues and how to manage the Trump administration were probably also colored by the North Korean leader’s perception that it paid to focus attention on Trump himself, taking advantage of the president’s ownership of the issue, his desire to show progress in the negotiations, and the fact that he was personally driving the policy. Kim almost certainly saw the ousting of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state in mid-March—a Trump loyalist, Mike Pompeo, who had been the director of the CIA, was named as his successor—and the replacement of National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster with John Bolton in April as signs of tumult and policy dysfunction in the Trump administration. At the same time, he might have interpreted Trump’s actions as those of a tough, confident leader, unafraid and unconstrained and willing to buck convention—qualities that Kim himself surely believed he possessed.
Those qualities in the two men came to a head briefly in late May, when North Korea, reacting viscerally to repeated comments about the “Libya model” by Vice President Pence and National Security Adviser Bolton—Pyongyang called Pence a “political dummy”—hinted at a possibility of calling off the summit. Its negotiators also stood up their U.S. counterparts for a planning meeting in Singapore, fueling concerns that Kim might pull out at the last minute. Instead, President Trump canceled the summit in a publicized letter to Kim: “Based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel