What Is North Korea’s Peace Treaty Negotiation Strategy?

Over at One Free Korea he has a great read posted in response to Joel Wit’s recent article in the Atlantic advocating for President-Elect Trump to negotiate a deal with the North Koreans.  You can read my response to Wit’s article at this link.  In One Free Korea’s post he does a good job articulating what North Korea’s negotiating strategy really is:

What North Korea really wants is a peace treaty negotiation — the longer and more inconclusive, the better. Its diplomatic strategy is to draw the U.S. and South Korea into an extended “peace process” in which it would make a series of up-front demands (the lifting of sanctions) in exchange for (at most) a partial freeze of its nuclear programs, which would effectively recognize it as a de facto nuclear weapons state. In short order, it would also demand the end to U.S.-South Korean military exercises, the curtailment of missile defense, and other demands that would ensure its nuclear and military hegemony over South Korea. Then, Pyongyang would demand an end to diplomatic and humanitarian criticism of its regime, censorship of anti-regime leaflets, demonstrations, and satirical films — in short, a limited recognition of its political supremacy over Seoul that would end in a one-country-two-systems Korea under North Korean domination, with Pyongyang gradually escalating its financial and political demands. [One Free Korea]

I recommend reading the whole thing at the link.