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Cameron Stewart

Singapore summit: guessing games as Trump and Kim lie low

Cameron Stewart
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, meets Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong after arriving in Singapore on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, meets Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong after arriving in Singapore on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

It is the biggest story in the world, but for the 2500 media representatives in Singapore it’s gleaned through only the briefest glimpses of closed-door meetings and the passing of black limousines.

The biggest drawcard, Kim Jong-un, is locked away in the St Regis hotel surrounded by concrete barriers and his running bodyguards. The North Koreans are as mysterious as they are ­invisible.

There are no press conferences or statements. All media inquiries are referred to the North Korean embassy, which says nothing. All we saw of Kim yesterday was the official video of his meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, which took place the night before.

Kim is unlikely to be spotted in the flesh by a single person outside the St Regis, and those involved in his meetings with Lee and with US President Donald Trump.

He will travel to today’s summit in his armoured black Mercedes limousine with tinted windows. No one will be able to spot which car is his as the motorcade speeds by the cameras and hundreds of onlookers.

Kim’s arrival in Singapore was no less mysterious.

There was no announcement, just reports from plane-spotters that three planes took off from Pyongyang on Sunday morning. One was an Air China 747, another was an old Il-62, Russia’s first long-range jet, and the third was a cargo plane.

Only when Kim emerged from the Air China 747 — out of sight of television — did we learn he had arrived in Singapore.

A photo provided by Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore shows Kim Jong-un arriving at Changi Airport in Singapore on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images
A photo provided by Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore shows Kim Jong-un arriving at Changi Airport in Singapore on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

Apart from the occasional tweet, Trump has also been uncharacteristically quiet since he ­arrived — perhaps not wanting to say anything that might jinx today’s summit.

Faced with the paucity of information, the huge media contingent has taken to interviewing Singaporeans and each other.

Others wait in the heat for a glimpse of a passing limousine while others seek out Trump and Kim impersonators around the city.

Television journalists do repeated crosses to say meetings have started and ended. No one knows the content of them.

Kim is scheduled to leave Singapore at 4pm (AEST) today.

That leaves little time for the actual summit, which is expected to begin at 11am.

We may have to wait until Kim is back in Pyongyang to read in North Korea’s state-run press ­exactly what he thought of his meeting in Singapore.

Cameron Stewart
Cameron StewartChief International Correspondent

Cameron Stewart is the Chief International Correspondent at The Australian, combining investigative reporting on foreign affairs, defence and national security with feature writing for the Weekend Australian Magazine. He was previously the paper's Washington Correspondent covering North America from 2017 until early 2021. He was also the New York correspondent during the late 1990s. Cameron is a former winner of the Graham Perkin Award for Australian Journalist of the Year.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/opinion/singapore-summit-guessing-games-as-trump-and-kim-lie-low/news-story/9f6766ebb5ae53c81fba60002fbb3cbc