China In The World

At the beginning of 2019, Paul Haenle and Tong Zhao, Carnegie–Tsinghua Center Senior Fellow, discussed the outlook for denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula on the China in the World podcast. As 2019 draws to a close, Haenle and Zhao sat down again to analyze developments involving North Korea, the United States, and China over the past year and discuss Kim Jong-un’s end of year deadline for the United States to change its approach to denuclearization negotiations.Zhao pointed to Trump and Kim’s failure to reach an agreement at the Hanoi Summit as the biggest surprise in developments relating to diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula in 2019. In the wake of the summit and following a series of unproductive working-level talks, Kim is ramping up pressure on the United States to extract concessions, Zhao said. Pyongyang only wants a limited agreement from Washington that would see the relaxation of the most stringent United Nations Security Council sanctions in return for some controls on North Korea’s nuclear pr