Overview

gapore, the historic summit between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un launched a process that, beyond the region itself, could guarantee world peace for the future; at the same time, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) rang in a new era in building a new world order based on trust, harmony and joint development. On the other hand, there was the disunited, antagonistic G-7 summit, whose European heads of state and government then returned home, only to plunge into a new dispute over the flare-up of the refugee crisis, and to react to that crisis with remedies as heinous as they are useless. It is high time for a policy reorientation on the old continent! The immediate opportunity to do so is the upcoming EU summit on June 28-29! Notwithstanding all the cynical comments from the usual suspects in the mainstream media, the groundbreaking summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un would never have been possible without the spirit of the New Silk Road, which has swept over Asia in particular in recent years. Indeed, the idea of economically including North Korea in the integration of China's Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union was very much present at last year's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. And at the Panmunjom Inter-Korean summit in April of this year, South Korean President Moon Jae-in presented his North Korean counterpart with a USB thumb drive containing detailed plans for the economic development of the North. The White House, in collaboration with the National Security Council, had prepared a video envisaging the perspective of a modern, industrialized, prosperous North Korea-a high-speed rail system, a Chinese maglev, industrial parks, a country on the rise-which Trump showed the North Korean Chairman during their meeting before the final press conference. I recommend to those in the West, whose minds have been herded like cattle into brand identities and stuffed full of prejudices, by the media, that they watch Trump's press conference themselves. A sovereign U.S. President presented the outcome of the summit: the total nuclear disarmament of North Korea, in return for security guarantees, the lifting of sanctions and the pledge to make North Korea prosperous. In addition, he announced the immediate end of the U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers, which he called provocative, saying, Under the circumstances, we are negotiating a comprehensive and complete deal. It is inappropriate to have war games. Number one, we save money. A lot. Number two, it is really something they very much appreciated. The people of both Koreas reacted ecstatically to the live broadcast of the Summit and the press conference. President Moon repeatedly commented with enthusiastic applause. We in Germany should recall the elation at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall to get a sense of the effect on the population there. Not only did China and Russia in particular conduct important background negotiations with North Korea in the run-up to the summit, but the Russian government has also pledged to assist in economic development, while the Chinese government promised to help provide security guarantees for North Korea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed the importance of resuming the six-party talks for an internationally secured implementation of the agreement. China's Global Times wrote that the North Korean economy is by no means as dilapidated as is often assumed: North Korea has economic and geographic advantages to join the B&R, which will help the country realize its economic potential. It won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight. However, getting North Korea into the B&R initiative to promote economic integration may be easier than what people would have imagined.

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