In July, Kim Yo Jong made a statement responding to the Trump White House’s suggestion that it could return to its old relationship with the DPRK. The White House had expressed hope that given Trump and Kim Jong Un’s past successes in diplomacy, such dialogue could happen again. The problem, as Kim Yo Jong pointed out, is that the White House is bringing up this possibility with the objective of getting a de-nuclearization deal for the DPRK; which is a non-starter, especially given how much the DPRK has had to harden its stance since Trump’s first term:
It is worth taking into account the fact that the year 2025 is neither 2018 nor 2019. The recognition of the irreversible position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state and the hard fact that its capabilities and geopolitical environment have radically changed should be a prerequisite for predicting and thinking [about] everything in the future. No one can deny the reality and should not misunderstand. Any attempt to deny the position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state which was established along with the existence of a powerful nuclear deterrent and fixed by the supreme law reflecting the unanimous will of all the DPRK people will be thoroughly rejected…if the personal relations between the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S. are to serve the purpose of denuclearization, it can be interpreted as nothing but a mockery of the other party. If the U.S. fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK-U.S. meeting will remain as a “hope” of the U.S. side.
This clarification about where socialist Korea now stands, and how absurd Washington’s hopes for Korean “peace” dialogue are in this historical phase, represents a far larger trend. A trend in which the global forces which stand against the imperial hegemon have needed to adopt a much sterner posture towards U.S. diplomatic offers, even compared to their posture from just five or six years ago.
We have reached an intensified stage in this third world war, one where Washington’s aggressions have advanced too much for “being friends” with it to any longer make rational sense. When I say “friends,” I mean it in the sense that China has acted as a “friend” to the United States in the past; which is to say that China had been willing to import the USA’s economic power, but was never intent on becoming loyal to the USA in any respect.
China’s changing dynamic with the United States during these last twenty years is a good example of what it should look like when anti-imperialists enter into a tactical partnership, and then cut ties as soon as this becomes strategically necessary. China hasn’t been perfect on this; it’s committed to neutrality during some of the most pivotal moments in the new cold war, like when Russia annexed Crimea. Despite the ways in which the CPC’s more U.S.-friendly internal elements have been able to get the country to soften its stances, though, it’s the anti-imperialist element that’s overall won out. When Washington carried out its “pivot to Asia,” China responded not by trying to appease the hegemon, but by strengthening its commitment to independent civilizational construction. Which was what made the U.S. decide to take its cold war escalations further—as exemplified by its instigation of an expanded Ukrainian conflict in 2022–and thereby make the world even more polarized.
What all anti-imperialists need to understand, and what forces like the DPRK already grasp, is that this polarization is a good thing. It’s necessary in order to create the conditions for U.S. imperialism’s final defeat. We should not be seeking to cultivate renewed “friendships” between the U.S. and its adversaries, because in practical terms, all this means is entertaining Washington’s offers for phony “peace” deals. Deals that can only have the effect of constricting the defense capabilities of Washington’s targeted countries, leaving these countries crippled in their means to resist imperial aggression.
This is what Russia must account for amid the Trump-Putin Alaska meeting; which in my view Putin never should have even agreed to, but at least we have reasons to expect it not to lead towards Russia ending the anti-fascist operation. The operation could continue for years to come, because Putin and his government have made it clear that they won’t cease fighting until the SMO’s stated goals have been reached. And based on how much pressure there is from Russia’s popular masses for their government to win the war, we can trust the Russian leadership to fulfill this promise.
The danger from the Alaska meeting is in how it could lead Russia’s war progress to be avoidably slowed down, because when Russia’s government is entertaining the USA’s “detente” overtures, this weakens the political will to fight. The fighting won’t end here, but there are capitalist pro-appeasement elements that seek to obstruct the anti-fascist campaign; Russia is not a dictatorship of the proletariat, like the DPRK or China are, so it’s handicapped in ways that they’re not.
The same kinds of damaging bourgeois influences exist within Iran, as we’ve seen when Iran’s liberal president has pushed for negotiating with the U.S. against Khamenei’s wishes. And Iran is in some ways more vulnerable to these internal saboteurs than Russia is, because at least in Russia there’s a communist party. These are inconvenient realities that the anti-imperialist movement must confront; Eurasia’s partnership between China, the DPRK, Russia, and Iran is a powerful force for progress, but the latter two countries in this partnership are distinct, in that they haven’t yet subdued their pro-appeasement bourgeoisie. The power of capital to weaken anti-imperialist projects from within cannot be underestimated, and capital will remain such a dangerously insidious force for a long time. But there is great hope to strengthen the anti-imperialist forces, and to take their counter-offensives much further.
This hope can be found by taking example from the liberation struggles of the peoples across the Global South, which share a strong kinship with what nuclear-armed revolutionary states like the DPRK are doing. For the movements which are connected to the fights against imperial violence, it’s always been apparent that creating more states like the DPRK is an instrumental goal. This is why the DPRK’s Juche idea is universal: it’s a model of socialist construction that can actually make a nation self-reliant, and capable of defending itself.
This knowledge is much more widely shared among the Global South’s socialists than among the American masses; but those of us in the United States are increasingly seeing our society come to understand why resistance is so crucial. The younger generation has witnessed the apocalyptic violence that our government is inflicting on the Palestinians, and these young people are largely supporting Palestine’s armed resistance. The mass base is there for a powerful, popular united front with the globe’s resistance forces. We just need to connect with these radicalized masses, and build up that front.
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