By Ee Gyeongjin
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Gim Jeongeun are holding a summit meeting tomorrow (10th of June), and it seems as if they might be arriving in Singapore simultaneously. The summit had been suddenly cancelled, but was re-scheduled, and it now just around the corner. North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and continued testing of ICBM missiles will remain an issue. These issues will dominate the summit, the latest continuation in the rollercoaster ride in relations between the two countries over the last 20 years. Mike Chinoi, formerly CNN’s Asia correspondent, presented the following theory in his recent book, North Korea’s Nuclear Rollercoaster:
“As we descend towards the hair-rising spectre of open warfare and confrontation, there’s been a dramatic last-minute upward swing towards peace and reconciliation, making us release a sigh of relief.”
And so finally the very first US-North Korean summit is approaching. It’s obviously of primary importance that we see how the nuclear issue of the century unfolds between the two leaders. The question of whether or not to sit at the negotiating table with who on earth else, and with how many others, should be taken into consideration as part of the core agenda [for the summit] and any future measures. Will the talks between Trump and Gim be able to slow down the nuclear missile rollercoaster?
Analysis: a rather shallow and banal discussion of the significance of the Trump-Gim summit, this editorial makes somewhat clumsy repeated use of the phrase “rollercoaster”, which is a deeply inelegant construction in Korean.