Don and Kim’s unprecedented head-to-belly calls for some creative thought. Geneva won’t do – because the boy went to school nearby. Singapore is too, well, Asian. So for me, that leaves Cuba, which has all the requisites for a world title fight. History, communism, cigars, Gitmo (the honey-pot destination for serial-killers) – and proximity to Florida for the inevitable round of golf. Don claims to play off nine; no doubt matched by Kim’s as-yet-unpublished handicap. Cuba will also enable Don to show off his perhaps limited Spanish vocabulary, upstaging the (allegedly) polyglot Korean. Covfefe, por favor, barista. And Ladies and Gentlemen, your Master of Ceremonies for this headline bout is none other than the darling of the media, winner of the Nobel Prize and everybody’s best friend, Barack Obama! Enjoy!
Boadicea's Chariot 
Kim Jong-un taught himself how to golf when he was still a baby. He became the world’s top golfer at the age of three, a title which he has held every single year. He has also been Mr Universe for 13 years running and was voted world’s sexist man 15 times.
Would that be sexiest? Or maybe that’s a ‘stet’? A highlight will be the troupe of synchronised interpretesses attending to his multilingual demands.
Far too often these summits are top heavy with assorted diplomats, spooks, pressmen, hangers on and nosey Parker rubber neckers all vying for a view. Only the two leaders should meet in this instance. My choice of venue is the halfway house of the respective capitals. Put them on a canoe in the middle of the Pacific. One of them is bound to fall overboard.
Janus: Kim Jong-un is too sexy for the second “e” in “sexiest”. Now, back to reality. Trump comes from an NYC development background. He’s used to bombast and using hyperbolic threats to get his way — and actually being willing to follow through. Some have compared this to a Nixon in China or de Gaulle in Algeria moment. Perhaps. But there’s something else that I don’t think is being discussed in the West. The Americans didn’t best the USSR by forming a strategic alliance with the Chinese. Rather, the Chinese bested the USSR by using the Americans to undermine them. The USSR was the stronger of the two rivals and the Chinese didn’t much like that. They have an old tradition of “using barbarians to control barbarians” and that was just another example of that. That is, they used foreigners to fight their battles with other foreigners so they didn’t get their hands dirty or have to take any losses.
Kim’s position is highly vulnerable. Mao and Deng shared a very warm, close relationship with Kim Il-sung. They fought against the Japanese together during the Second World War. They were old allies and they founded Communist states at roughly the same time. Jiang and Hu didn’t have as close or warm a relationship with Kim Jong-il, but he acted within certain tolerable parameters. His rhetoric and actions were readily understandable to those versed in East Asian history, especially in respect to East Asian statecraft. He was careful not to bite the Chinese hand that fed him and was, when it came to it, a reliably ally who kept the Americans from the gate. Under Fatty Kim the Third, as the Chinese like to call Kim Jong-un, all rules have been broken. His unusual brutality and willingness to kill anyone who threatened him, even his own family members in the most horrific ways, is a sign of real fear and weakness. The Chinese are more than willing to take him out and replace him with a close relative. In fact, the Chinese have been grooming some for a few years. That is why he ordered his half-brother killed in Malaysia and why there were attempts made on the lives of his relatives in Beijing by North Korean agents. He’s more trouble than he’s worth and the only purpose North Korea serves is as a buffer state. Any Beijing-supported replacement would be a reformist and a moderniser. He would normalise and regularise North Korea’s relations with the rest of the world along the lines of China, Vietnam and Laos. By cutting a deal with the Americans, Fatty Kim III would undermine the Chinese by using the Americans as a weapon.
Thanks, CT, for explaining some of the mysteries of Asian politics.
Jaydubbya, I like the venue a lot. Canoodling with Kim -what a headline!