While much of the world has been absorbed by the crisis in the Middle East, an increasingly emboldened regime in East Asia is edging back onto the geopolitical radar.

On April 19, North Korea conducted its fourth missile test of the month, with state media saying the launch involved weapons fitted with cluster-bomb warheads. A week earlier, the regime’s first-in-class destroyer, the Choe Hyon, fired two strategic cruise missiles and three anti-ship missiles, a reminder that Pyongyang’s military capabilities are no longer confined to land.

The April 19 test was overseen by Kim Jong Un, the country’s leader, and his teenage daughter, Kim Ju Ae, whom South Korea’s spy agency has recently identified as his likely successor.

The timing is hard to ignore. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to visit Beijing in May, and has previously indicated interest in renewed contact with Kim. If it happens, it would mark their fourth face-to-face encounter and could reopen stalled denuclearization talks on the Peninsula.

But the strategic landscape has fundamentally altered since Trump first entered the White House in 2017. In 2024, Pyongyang signed a strategic partnership with Moscow that has effectively ushered in a military alliance. Meanwhile, its economic dependence on China has hardly disappeared. Bilateral trade has rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s latest visit to Pyongyang underscored that, despite signs of strains, the relationship still carries depth and warmth. 

So does Washington still have a viable path to negotiating with Kim? What lessons might Pyongyang be drawing from the unfolding conflict in Iran and the growing salience of asymmetric warfare? To discuss these questions, The Diplomat spoke with Frank Aum, a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center and an international security expert.

What lessons is Pyongyang taking from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East?

We don’t need to speculate on what Pyongyang has learned from the war in Iran. Kim Jong Un stated in late March, in reference to the Iran conflict, that “the present situation clearly proves” that North Korea was justified in rejecting U.S. pressure to give up its nuclear arsenal.

But it’s also likely that the Iran conflict has also reaffirmed other existing beliefs, including the value of maintaining strong ties with major powers like Russia and China, exerting tight control over the domestic population to avoid the kinds of internal protests that may encourage foreign intervention, and developing asymmetric capabilities such as drone warfare. 

South Korea should also note President Trump’s willingness to listen to his counterparts. Israel’s arguments strongly influenced the decision to attack Iran, so it’s possible that South Korea can take a similar approach to changing Trump’s approach [to North Korea]. Prime Minister Kim Min-seok apparently offered some recommendations during his Oval Office visit last month, so we’ll see if anything took hold.

Has Tehran shown North Korea how to bleed a stronger opponent without beating them outright? How should the U.S. and its East Asian allies adjust?

North Korea already understood a long time ago, before the Iran conflict, that with strong military capabilities postured appropriately and sufficient support from other major powers, it can impose costs on its adversaries despite being relatively weaker. So North Korea is already applying this insight to shape the dynamics on the Korean Peninsula and the region.

Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo need to rethink their approach to North Korea by focusing on what our empirical track record with North Korea has shown, which is that pressure is counterproductive and that engagement can tangibly reduce tensions. 

When the alliance focuses on increasing pressure and deterrence, as it did between 2013-2018 and 2022-today, North Korea responds negatively and increases its military development and testing. When the alliance focuses on addressing North Korea’s concerns and emphasizing confidence-building measures, as it did in 1994-2002, 2007-2008, 2011-2012, 2018-2019, North Korea responds more positively with better behavior. 

Washington also needs to recognize that denuclearization can no longer be the basis for talks with North Korea. If Washington wants to engage with North Korea, it needs to decide what the new basis will be.

With talk swirling ahead of Trump’s Beijing trip, how realistic is another summit with Kim, and what would each side be looking to get?

A meeting with Kim Jong Un is not likely, but also not impossible. This is because the prerequisite for talks – mutual interest – is present. Kim Jong Un has outlined his preconditions, that the talks must be about peaceful coexistence, not denuclearization. Trump has responded with a desire for unconditional talks. Both sides think the ball is in the other’s court. The question is, who will bend first?

I think it is in both sides’ interests to bend mutually. A negotiated interim deal could be beneficial to both sides. North Korea could potentially achieve unofficial recognition of its nuclear program (albeit capped), sanctions relief, threat reduction through suspended military exercises and U.S. strategic asset deployments, and a pathway to normalized relations. 

And the United States could potentially achieve tangible security benefits, including a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, improved communications and relations with North Korea, and reduced tensions and risks on the Peninsula. By improving relations, Washington could also establish a new channel to work on other issues with North Korea, such as human rights, remains recovery operations, family reunions, cyber crimes, and other illicit activities.

The United States will never accept North Korea as a de facto nuclear state under the definition of the NPT [the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons]. However, Trump has already called North Korea a nuclear country, and the U.S. government already views North Korea as a nuclear-weapon country for military planning purposes. The question is whether Trump is willing to improve relations with a nuclear North Korea, and I think the answer is yes.

Does Trump still have meaningful leverage over Pyongyang, or has the latter’s deeper alignment with Moscow and renewed coordination with Beijing changed the equation? 

Trump has very little leverage to coerce North Korea back to the negotiating table, which the current situation has made very obvious. Pyongyang is arguably more secure today – due to support from Russia and China, its own deterrence capabilities, and the weakening of the rules-based international order – than it has been at any point in its seven-decade history.

More importantly, Washington needs to realize that serious diplomacy today requires not more pressure but greater consideration and accommodation of North Korea’s interests. 

To jumpstart talks, Trump will likely have to de-emphasize denuclearization, emphasize peaceful coexistence and risk reduction, and take unilateral confidence-building measures. 

Is Kim Ju Ae’s rise a real succession signal, or just a spectacle?

It’s reasonable to take the South Korean intelligence service assessment seriously, given the statements and pictures coming directly from the North Korean government that suggest that Kim Ju Ae is being groomed for at least a senior position, and there are no challengers other than potentially Kim Yo Jong. It will be very important to monitor the dynamic between the two women.