Trump-Kim 2018 Singapore Summit and culinary diplomacy: the role of food and symbols in international relations
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Trump‑Kim 2018 Singapore Summit and culinary diplomacy: the role of food and symbols in international relations Keri Matwick1 · Kelsi Matwick2 Revised: 22 June 2020 / Accepted: 2 October 2020 © Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract Summit lunches celebrate commensality, the practice of eating together, which provides a convivial setting for leaders to sit together, negotiate agreements, and smooth out differences. A diplomatic event can be splendid and ceremonial, or a private working lunch, with symbols embedded that can have impact on global issues. The dishes represent national values and attend to personal favorites, recognizing the identity and relationship of those present. As instruments in the art of diplomacy, meals give participants the opportunity to identify and understand the messages such occasions create. Understanding the social semiotics of culinary diplomacy allows researchers to analyze summit lunches and other diplomatically significant events. Drawing on culinary diplomacy and social semiotics, this article explores the semiotics associated with culinary diplomacy by analyzing the working lunch of the Trump-Kim 2018 Summit between American President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un held in Singapore. In a qualitative analysis of the media reporting of this summit, this study proposes that the strategic setting made by the protocol and food of the working lunch conveys messages of status and symbolism that impact foreign diplomacy. Insight gained from this study highlights how a dining table can trump the conference table in initiating a conversation, especially among enemies. Keywords Public diplomacy · Social semiotics · Donald trump · Kim jong-un · Gastrodiplomacy · Culinary diplomacy · Media discourse · Summit · Singapore
Introduction On Tuesday midday, June 12, 2018, in Singapore, an unprecedented political event took place: it was the first time that a sitting American president and North Korean leader met. At the summit, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un embark on diplomacy at the table, with denuclearization and the opening of North Korea’s economy on the menu alongside Western and Eastern dishes. Summits provide a platform for discussion as a form of “soft power” by shaping the preferences of others through nonaggressive manners (Nye 2004), and in this case, through * Keri Matwick [email protected] Kelsi Matwick [email protected] 1
Language and Communication Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
Department of Journalism, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
2
food. Studies have noted the connection between food and politics or gastrodiplomacy (Rockower 2012), and its variants, public and private culinary diplomacy (Chapple-Sokol 2013). Public culinary diplomacy works to increase foreign awareness of a country’s culture and cuisine through its restaurants such as Thailand’s “Global Thai Program,” ingredients such as kimchi in South Korea’s “Korean Cuisine to the Worl
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