Why Trump-Xi summit must put Korean peninsula back on the agenda

Why Trump-Xi summit must put Korean peninsula back on the agenda

US and Chinese indifference risks reinforcing North Korea’s calculation that the world will settle for merely managing its nuclear threat

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Kang Jun-young is a professor at the Graduate School of International and Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and chairman of the Northeast Asia Future Cooperation Forum.

Published: 5:30am, 22 Sep 2026

The September 24 summit between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump is no ordinary engagement. Their May summit took place in Beijing and largely centred on economic issues. This one will be on Trump’s home turf and is expected to put strategic questions on the table. Will the Korean peninsula and North Korea’s nuclear programme again be pushed to the margins?

In Beijing, both sides focused on their immediate national interests, such as trade, semiconductors, rare earths and Taiwan. The issue of the peninsula’s security threat never appeared on the agenda.

Trade, technology and artificial intelligence are again expected to dominate the agenda in Washington. Yet the North’s arsenal is no side issue – it is the most explosive variable capable of destabilising northeast Asia.