A happy day

Kim Jong-un crossed the parallel 38 which divides the Korean Peninsula at 9:28 am local Friday and became the first ruler of the North to set foot in the South since the end of the Korean War, in 1953. Across the border, he was received by Moon Jae-in, the president-elect in 2017 with a platform that advocates peaceful coexistence and cooperation between the two sides separated in areas of communist and capitalist influence after the Second World War.

In a historic moment, the current Kim shook Moon's hand and jumped the small concrete wall that divides the two countries in the Panmunjom Demilitarized Zone. After posing for photos next to the host, he suggested that they both take the opposite path and take a step to the other side of the parallel 38.

After entering the House of Peace, Kim signed a guest book, where you stated: "A new story begins now - at the beginning of history and in the era of peace". In speech, he declared that he wants to “start a new chapter” in relations with South Korea and guaranteed that Pyongyang will not breach any more agreements previously reached between the two countries.

North Korean state agency KCNA said Kim is willing to discuss “open-heartedly with Moon Jae-in all the issues involved in improving inter-Korean relations and achieving peace., prosperity and reunification of the peninsula ”.

The summit was the third in history between Seoul and Pyongyang, the first in 11 years and the only one performed below the parallel 38. The previous two, in 2000 e 2007, occurred under the command of Kim Jong-il, current dictator's father, and took South Korean presidents to the capital of the North.

Son of North Korean war refugees, Moon Jae-in bets his political capital on rapprochement with Pyongyang. On the agenda of the meeting is the denuclearization of the peninsula, bilateral cooperation and the possibility of a peace agreement that officially puts an end to the Korean War (1950-1953), suspended by an armistice.

The meeting is to be followed by a summit meeting between Kim and the US President, Donald Trump, to be held in May or June. The United States expressed its desire yesterday that the meeting between the Koreas "advance to a future of peace".

The current representative of the North Korean dynasty took command of the most closed country in the world when he was less than 30 years and dedicated himself to building the nuclear arsenal that brought South Korea and the Americans to the negotiating table. In the seven years since he came to power, he held 99 ballistic missile tests, more than double the 46 conducted by his father over almost two decades.

Centered in the United States and South Korea, North Korea's negotiations on its nuclear program have an impact on other countries in the region, who at some point will like to have a chair at the discussion table. Any solution that is reached will not have stability if it does not have the support of China, neighbor, Pyongyang's largest ally and main trading partner, say analysts.

Conversations have the potential to change Asia's geopolitical board and realign the interests of actors in the region. Within reach of North Korea's conventional and nuclear weapons, Japan is the country that most closely follows the rapprochement between the two sides of the Korean Peninsula. North and South are marked by 35 years of Japanese occupation at the beginning of the last century, when they were a unified country, and they harbor a historic resentment towards Tokyo.

Pyongyang's second largest ally, Russia is also interested in the destinations of the negotiation. No accident, all of these countries were part of the conversations that were trying to get out of the crisis until 2009, when they were abandoned by North Korea.

"It is not possible to have any agreement or solution that does not please China", said Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the USA at the Wilson Center, em Washington. According to him, over the past two years, Beijing tried to distance itself from the problem and present it as something that concerned Washington and Pyongyang. "China painted North Korea and the United States as irrational children and itself as the rational adult."

The calculation did not foresee the sudden announcement that the american president, Donald Trump, was willing to meet with North Korean Kim Jong-un, who spent the first seven years of his government isolated from the outside world and focused on developing his nuclear program.

Chinese Xi Jinping reacted and invited Kim to visit Beijing, what happened a month ago. Pyongyang also dispatched its foreign minister to Moscow, where he met the Russian chancellor, Serguei Lavrov, just over two weeks ago.

Lu Chao, North Korea specialist at the Lioaning Academy of Social Sciences, and China, told Voice of America that Beijing's participation in the negotiations will be inevitable. "The progress of a peaceful settlement on the peninsula is closely related to China's interests and there is no way for China to hide behind the scenes and just be a spectator."

Despite USA, South Korea and China demand denuclearization of North Korea, there is almost a consensus in Washington that this will not happen, stated Daly, do Instituto Kissinger. “When we look back five or ten years from now, most likely, we will see these summits as the beginning of the process by which the US and the international community, gradually, will settle for the reality that North Korea has nuclear weapons. ”

Depending on how the conversations progress, they could negatively affect the alliance between the US and its two main allies in the region, South Korea and Japan. In an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine, Sheila Smith noted that disagreement over negotiations with North Korea has torn ties between Washington and Tokyo in the past, what could happen again now.

Last week, the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, met with Trump and warned of the risk of Kim using the negotiations to buy time. "The leader of Japan must be concerned that Trump will repeat the mistakes of the past and give in soon in an effort to avoid military confrontation", wrote Smith.

Originally posted at http://internacional.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,historical-approximation-between-koreas-shakes-tray-geopolitical-asiatic,70002285587