THE RECENTLY concluded summit in Pyongyang between President Moon Jae-in of South Korea (ROK) and Chairman Kim Jong-un of North Korea (DPRK) seems to have thrown up a winner, and it is not the South Korean leader.

The outcome of the talks on 18-20 September 2018 was marked by easily reversible agreements based on the sentimentality of Korean reconciliation, and insubstantial concessions that hardly promote nuclear disarmament. The Pyongyang Joint Declaration of September 2018 showed that the Kim regime has emerged as the clear beneficiary of this third inter-Korean summit.

…Liang Tuang Nah, PhD is a Research Fellow at the Military Studies Programme, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.