That ‘historic handshake’

‘‘Most Western media reports have panned Trump for giving Kim what he wanted badly – international recognition – while receiving little in exchange.’’

What can you expect when the characters included “The Boss, “The Big Kid” and Dennis Rodman?

The answer’s up to you as even experts seemed at cross purposes about whether or not that “historic handshake” was all it was built up to be.

All news outlets from east to west must have carried that picture of United States President Donald Trump and North Korean President Kim Jong-un shaking hands and looking chummy.

It was a meeting that no one imagined could ever happen, what with Trump calling Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man” last year and threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea, and the latter confiding in Rodman, who had kept a promise to bring a basketball team to North Korea: “This is the first time someone has ever kept their word to me and my country.”

But happen it did, at what may well be the new Switzerland of Asia, Singapore.

The whole thing smacked of caricature somehow, but perhaps those Trump and Kim lookalikes hamming it up prior to the meeting were to blame for injecting that flavor into the mix.

Yet, are we really so wrong to impute such tones into this matter? Perhaps we just can’t shake off that image of a widely smiling North Korean leader and the US one looking so blonde in his suit, striding toward the cameras while a soft breeze ruffled their hemlines.

It’s just so fantabulous that at the end of it, they actually came to terms with the nuclear question — er, the question of nuclear importance. Or something.

But what were the actual gains from that meeting?

Who got the most out of it or was it a fair deal?

Reports were certainly jubilant about the “end of nuclear threat,” which had hung over our heads since North Korea started conducting nuclear and missile tests. Political analysts note, however, that what the Singapore meet had yielded was fairly “vague,” with the US yet to find out for sure if Kim truly intends “to keep his promise to Trump that he would dismantle a missile engine testing site,” as The Guardian reported.

A columnist from South China Morning Post hinted about Beijing being possibly connected somehow in the summit dealings as it noted that Kim Jong-un had chosen to fly into Singapore onboard a Chinese jumbo jet rather than his own plane.

Wang Xiangwei on June 17 wrote, “Trump said as much in the post-summit press conference in Singapore on Tuesday. He thanked the Chinese for efforts to make his meeting with Kim possible, and said he would call Xi to discuss the talks, probably on his flight back home.”

Jonathan Marcus of BBC News also writes: “The prevailing view is that it was the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who departed with more tangible gains. The real beneficiaries of the Singapore Summit may be Pyongyang and Beijing.”

A similar observation was made by Wang Xiangwei: “Most Western media reports have panned Trump for giving Kim what he wanted badly – international recognition – while receiving little in exchange.

“Some have declared that China was the big winner, in the sense that the bland statement could only signify its important role moving forward. Others have also speculated that Trump and Kim hitting it off during their very first meeting could make Chinese leaders jittery,” he added.

At the moment, we can only speculate. Promises made are promises until they are or aren’t broken — even misinterpreted or reinterpreted!

The BBC article cited Dr. Sue Mi Terry, Senior Fellow for Korea at the Washington DC think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who “was singularly unimpressed by the wording of the joint statement.”

She noted that “‘working towards denuclearization’ is a weaker formula than earlier disarmament commitments made by previous North Korean regimes.”

The North Korean leader, she added, “emerged with standing enhanced.”

President Trump, ever the entertainment personality, is giving the world superlatives about the gains made from that summit. His performance cannot be faulted.

He just may have met his match in President Kim Jong-un.