One of South Korea’s leading newspapers has accused Donald Trump of “trying to use the North Korean nuclear crisis to feed his greed for the Nobel Peace Prize”.

The hard-hitting editorial in The Korea Herald on Wednesday criticised the president for “twisting the arm” of Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, to nominate him for the award and warned that the upcoming summit in Hanoi with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, “could end up becoming a geopolitical performance aimed at dazzling the Nobel committee”.

And there are serious implications for South Korea’s security, it added.

“If Kim Jong-un sits down with Trump with little preparation from the US and flatters Trump enough, South Korea’s national security will plunge to the bottom of the priority list.

“Who then will prevent South Korea from becoming hostage of a nuclear-armed North Korea?”