Washington Post: Kim Jong Un Isn’t The First Tyrant to Play Trump, and He Won’t Be The Last

By Jackson Diehl:

The testing of a new U.S. president by both adversaries and allies is a well-established phenomenon. What’s different about the Trump transition is the tactics some have adopted. Rather than dispatch delegations or lobby advisers, foreign governments, having taken the new man’s narcissistic measure, are doing their best to engage him personally, through tweets and other public statements.

It’s not that hard to succeed. After Trump held an unprecedented phone call with the president of Taiwan, the Chinese Navy grabbed a U.S. underwater drone from international waters. “Let them keep it!” was Trump’s baffling response, which handed a talking point to Beijing. “He seemed emotionally upset, but no one knows what he wanted to say,” mocked the Global Times, a regime mouthpiece, which went on to argue that Trump “has no sense of how to lead a superpower” — a message China wants to drive home with nervous U.S. allies in East Asia.

Trolling Trump is not the only option of course. It’s been noted in allied capitals that the man is deeply susceptible to flattery. “President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel!” tweeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Trump criticized a U.N. resolution on Israeli settlements. “President-elect Trump has shown deep and great understanding of what is taking place in the region as a whole and what is taking place in Egypt,” proclaimed Egyptian strongman Abdel Fatah al-Sissi in an interview that was splashed by the Trumpist Breitbart website.

The Full Story (January 8, 2017)

Washington Post: As Trump and North Korea’s Kim Spar, China Poses as the Responsible Actor

By Simon Denyar:

South Korea, not wanting perhaps to contemplate that possibility of rockets raining down on the Korean Peninsula, took a different view. Its Foreign Ministry said Trump in his tweet had issued a “clear warning” to North Korea that showed his awareness of the urgency of the threat — and that he will not waver from a policy of imposing sanctions.

“Because of our active outreach, President-elect Trump and U.S. officials are clearly aware of the gravity and urgency of the North Korean nuclear threat,” ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck told a briefing. “They are maintaining an unwavering stance on the need for sanctions on North Korea and for close cooperation between South Korea and the U.S.”

This also raises the issue of how much interpretation should be required for the tweets of what will soon be the most powerful man in the world.

Euan Graham, director of the international security program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, said the world was “on the slippery slope of trying to interpret one man’s not particularly coherent tweets.” But he added that the exchange has increased the chances that North Korea could be “the first crisis out of the box” in the Trump presidency, at least in Asia.

The Full Story (January 3, 2017)

[Special] Reuters: North Korea Says Trump Isn't Screwy at All, a Wise Choice for President

By Jack Kim:

North Korea has backed presumptive U.S. Republican nominee Donald Trump, with a propaganda website praising him as "a prescient presidential candidate" who can liberate Americans living under daily fear of nuclear attack by the North.

A column carried on Tuesday by DPRK Today, one of the reclusive and dynastic state's mouthpieces, described Trump as a "wise politician" and the right choice for U.S. voters in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election.

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DPRK Today also said Trump's suggestion that the United States should pull its troops from South Korea until Seoul pays more was the way to achieve Korean unification.

"It turns out that Trump is not the rough-talking, screwy, ignorant candidate they say he is, but is actually a wise politician and a prescient presidential candidate," said the column, written by a China-based Korean scholar identified as Han Yong Muk.

The Full Story (June 2, 2016)