https://www.scmp.com/rss/322059/feed John Barry Kotch lived and worked in Asia for more than a decade as an instructor at LG Academy and visiting professor at Hanyang University’s Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul. Earlier, he served with the UN Command as an intelligence adviser to the South Korean Air Force, as a State Department consultant on Korea and special assistant at the Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C. More recently, he was senior adviser and writer at the Pacific Basin Economic... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The North Korean attack on South Korea in June 1950 upended the political universe of the day, occasioning a seismic shift in northeast Asia’s geopolitical tectonic plates. The Korean war, which began 70 years ago on June 25, never formally ended. And in reality, little has changed on the ground over the intervening years since an armistice was signed in July 1953 ending the hostilities, in terms of a deeper understanding of the war itself as well as its underlying causes and meaning. For some,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3090189/70-years-korean-war-threat-armed-conflict-still-hangs-over?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3090189/70-years-korean-war-threat-armed-conflict-still-hangs-over?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Jun 2020 01:00:11 +0000 Political developments in the Middle East invariably reverberate in the Far East. That was true in 2002 when then United States president George W. Bush declared war on “an axis of evil” consisting of Iran, Iraq and North Korea, those states which, according to Bush, “pose a grave and growing danger” and “threaten the peace of the world” by “seeking weapons of mass destruction” – claims unsupported by intelligence and absent inspections carried out by the United Nations. And it’s also true today... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3045567/trump-targets-iran-north-koreas-kim-would-be-wise-tone-down-his?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3045567/trump-targets-iran-north-koreas-kim-would-be-wise-tone-down-his?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Jan 2020 19:00:08 +0000 Six years as a recluse consolidating power, often in unsavory ways, while perfecting the country’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles along the way, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has since come out of isolation, giving new meaning to the 1960s Beach Boys hit, I Get Around. In the last 16 months, he has met four times with China’s President Xi Jinping, three times with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, twice with US President Donald Trump and finally with Russia’s... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3008238/russia-has-much-offer-korean-peace-process-denuclearisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3008238/russia-has-much-offer-korean-peace-process-denuclearisation?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 30 Apr 2019 19:00:11 +0000 A little more than a year ago, one of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s highest-level aides arrived at the White House with a startling message; North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposed a summit meeting with US President Donald Trump, which he accepted on the spot. This week, Moon is slated to hold another summit meeting with Trump in Washington and, this time, he is on a mission to get the peace process back on track. The historic Trump-Kim summit in Singapore set the two countries four... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3005142/dual-track-strategy-chinese-involvement-needed-secure-peace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3005142/dual-track-strategy-chinese-involvement-needed-secure-peace?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Apr 2019 01:15:11 +0000 Ask any property agent – foremost, US President Donald Trump – what the three most important factors for success are and the response will invariably be “location, location, location”. Does the same hold true for international political negotiations between long-time adversaries? We are about to find out, with the announcement during Trump’s State of the Union address of a second Trump-Kim summit, in Vietnam at the end of February. Singapore was a neutral setting, ideal for the first-of-its-kind... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2185800/when-trump-meets-kim-vietnams-history-can-help?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2185800/when-trump-meets-kim-vietnams-history-can-help?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Feb 2019 19:00:45 +0000 This has been a banner year for summitry on the Korean peninsula with the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics as the precursor. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held multiple meetings with South Korean president Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping, while Donald Trump met Kim briefly in Singapore, a first for a sitting US president. Now it’s all about maintaining the momentum. If Trump’s remarks reflect policy, we have gone from “fire and fury” to “love” and the present policy of contradiction.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2179681/will-north-korea-disarm-may-depend-how-us-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2179681/will-north-korea-disarm-may-depend-how-us-and?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Dec 2018 02:00:30 +0000 On November 6, Americans will vote for a new Congress – all 435 members of the House of Representatives and roughly one-third or 35 senators. In addition, 36 governorships and most state legislatures will be up for grabs under the two-tier US federal/state political system. Overshadowing all these races will be US President Donald Trump, albeit in name only – he’s not even on the ballot. In reality, midterm elections derive their importance as the first opportunity for the electorate to pass... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2171433/us-midterm-elections-will-not-only-shake?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2171433/us-midterm-elections-will-not-only-shake?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Nov 2018 18:01:01 +0000 Nearly four months after the much-hyped Trump-Kim Singapore summit on June 12, denuclearisation remains as elusive as ever. While US President Donald Trump touts the great relationship he has established with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who is scheduled to fly to Pyongyang on Sunday to lay the groundwork for a second Trump-Kim summit – has heralded “the dawn of a new day”, the bloom is off the rose. Trump’s relationship with Kim is not of central concern... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2166625/north-korea-unlikely-give-its-nuclear?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2166625/north-korea-unlikely-give-its-nuclear?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Oct 2018 18:01:23 +0000 Pyongyang’s demand that a peace declaration or peace treaty precede denuclearisation has thrown a monkey wrench into the Singapore summit communique, which omitted any mention of preconditions. If history is any guide – and it usually is – both danger and opportunity lie ahead. Of immediate concern is the scheduled September summit between the leaders of the two Koreas in Pyongyang for which South Korean President Moon Jae-in has just proposed an ambitious vision for “inter-Korean economic... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2160872/how-break-stalemate-korean-peninsula-north-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2160872/how-break-stalemate-korean-peninsula-north-and?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Aug 2018 18:30:50 +0000 A 90-day window of opportunity from the promulgation of the Panmunjom Peace Declaration on April 27 to this week, which also marks the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Korean war armistice on July 27, has closed while the Korean peninsula remains an armed camp. Unfortunately, nothing has changed on the ground with the growing likelihood that the progress made during the first half of 2018 will slip away unless the two Koreas once again step up to the plate. Even if agreement on... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2156935/six-ways-north-and-south-korea-keep-momentum?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2156935/six-ways-north-and-south-korea-keep-momentum?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:30:15 +0000 High on the list of tangible deliverables at this week’s Singapore summit is a peace treaty ending the Korean war. US President Donald Trump acknowledged as much during North Korean envoy Kim Yong-chol’s pre-summit White House drop-by, noting that the meeting could lead to a treaty formally ending the war of 1950-1953, a goal enunciated in the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration and a staple of North Korean propaganda for decades. More importantly, it dramatically shifts the summit’s goal posts from... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2150197/after-kim-meets-trump-heres-how-peace-could?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2150197/after-kim-meets-trump-heres-how-peace-could?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Jun 2018 17:02:23 +0000 A carefully worded letter from US President Donald Trump to Kim Jong-un threw cold water on the planned June 12 summit with the North Korean ruler in Singapore, but left the door open to meeting at another time and/or place. The key question is whether this is a setback or a breakdown in the process. For now, however, the takeaway is that loose lips sink ships – and summits.  On the US side, instead of one person or department taking the lead – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would have been... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2147752/north-korean-tag-team-diplomacy-takes-hit-trump-learns-loose?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2147752/north-korean-tag-team-diplomacy-takes-hit-trump-learns-loose?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 May 2018 05:00:00 +0000 Lost amid the furore over North Korea’s nuclear advances, mutual threats between Washington and Pyongyang and the surprise announcement of dual summit meetings – between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un, then Kim and Donald Trump – is the long history of how we got to this point of confrontation and possible breakthrough.  This history goes well beyond the nuclear crises of the post-cold war era to the Korean war of 1950-53, and the division of Korea at the end of the second world war. How did... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2144044/us-north-korea-summit-can-undo-historical-mistakes-led?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2144044/us-north-korea-summit-can-undo-historical-mistakes-led?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Apr 2018 09:00:00 +0000 On April 27, the leaders of North and South Korea are scheduled to hold their first summit in a decade during which inter-Korean relations have steadily deteriorated as the North Korean nuclear crisis escalated.  The two Koreas have gone down this road before at the June 2000 and follow-on 2007 Pyongyang summits, long on symbolism but short on substance and ultimately negated by successive conservative South Korean administrations. They have much to catch up on: a lost decade has seen the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2142445/us-north-korea-summit-location-still-air-it-will-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2142445/us-north-korea-summit-location-still-air-it-will-be?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 Apr 2018 09:45:30 +0000 The announcement of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s offer to meet US President Donald Trump, and the latter’s acceptance, has provided a welcome – if surprising – shift from a military to a diplomatic track on the Korean peninsula and scrambled the calculations of the experts. There is both danger – for those who fear a trap, given Pyongyang’s disappointing track record on nuclear negotiations – and opportunity, bringing to mind the late Robert Kennedy, who “dreamed of things that never were... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137143/can-donald-trump-act-stabiliser-ensure-us-north-korea-summit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137143/can-donald-trump-act-stabiliser-ensure-us-north-korea-summit?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Mar 2018 09:30:30 +0000 Sports and politics have intermingled as far back as the earliest Olympic Games in ancient Greece and most ostentatiously in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, with Germany’s new-found status as a European power on full display. More recently, think ping-pong diplomacy in the early 1970s, which led to the Sino-American diplomatic breakthrough, and South Korea reaching out on the eve of the Pyeongchang Olympics to North Korean soccer officials during an obscure tournament in south China, which resulted... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2135102/kim-jong-un-cant-just-wish-away-us-role-korean-peninsula?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2135102/kim-jong-un-cant-just-wish-away-us-role-korean-peninsula?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Feb 2018 09:45:00 +0000 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s 2018 New Year address, combining a message of defiance towards Washington and conciliation towards Seoul, opened up an opportunity for the Korean peninsula not seen since Kim came to power five years ago. The wisest course for the United States for now is to be seen but not heard and let the Koreas have their moment. The recent agreement on a new round of military talks between North and South Korea makes good sense, not least because there is already a protocol... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2129998/winter-olympics-could-be-first-step-towards-necessary?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2129998/winter-olympics-could-be-first-step-towards-necessary?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 23 Jan 2018 09:45:00 +0000 Following a gruelling 12-day, five-nation jaunt around Asia – the longest trip of his presidency – Donald Trump returned to Washington in high spirits, albeit dogged by the investigations into links between his campaign and Russia. That was capped by the recent arrest and indictment of key campaign aides, preventing him from even a brief sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin to jointly advance a North Korea agenda. Still, while long on symbolism and short on substance, Trump hit all the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2120935/time-us-and-china-get-same-page-north-koreas-political?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2120935/time-us-and-china-get-same-page-north-koreas-political?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Nov 2017 10:00:15 +0000 Not since the Cuban missile crisis 55 years ago this week has the world faced such a direct threat to international peace and security as the current US-North Korea nuclear stand-off portends. North Korea’s methodical and unceasing pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them threatens not only the security of the United States and northeast Asia, but also contributes to nuclear proliferation globally. Contradictory statements from Trump administration officials, including the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2115827/un-led-multilateral-talks-offer-best-hope-peace-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2115827/un-led-multilateral-talks-offer-best-hope-peace-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Oct 2017 09:00:49 +0000 North Korea’s response to President Trump’s “fire and fury” threat was not long in coming. By sending an intermediate-range missile hurtling over Japan, defying Trump’s “It won’t happen!” tweet from January, the North left the American president with egg on his face. A day later, Kim Jong-un doubled down with Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test, a blast roughly 10 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. And, on Friday, North Korea fired another missile that flew over Japan’s northern Hokkaido,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2111028/north-koreas-nuclear-and-missile-tests-defy-us-cold-wars-end?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2111028/north-koreas-nuclear-and-missile-tests-defy-us-cold-wars-end?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Sep 2017 02:22:52 +0000 In his landmark study, The Origins of the Korean War, historian Bruce Cumings reflected on the “strange fate [which] had brought a one-time farm boy from Golconda, Illinois, Lt Gen John Hodge, to rule over the fortunes of 15 million Koreans”. A three-star combat veteran of the Pacific war, Hodge arrived in Korea in September 1945 as commander of the XXIV Corps, to plant the American flag on the peninsula as well as staunch the flow south of Colonel General Ivan Chistyakov’s 25th Red Army at the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2107077/why-china-best-placed-cool-war-rhetoric-between-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2107077/why-china-best-placed-cool-war-rhetoric-between-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 Aug 2017 08:51:18 +0000 While the first world war ended with a punitive peace, complete with harsh reparations and prolonged occupation, setting the stage for the second world war, the latter was the opposite, ending with a relatively benign occupation of the two main Axis powers (Germany and Japan), a peace treaty, and their subsequent reintegration into the community of nations. By contrast, post-second world war conflicts in global hotspots such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have experienced... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2104454/was-ho-chi-minh-reason-why-vietnam-war-history-wounds-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2104454/was-ho-chi-minh-reason-why-vietnam-war-history-wounds-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Jul 2017 05:23:14 +0000 Over the past fortnight, a summit in Washington between new South Korean president Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump – preceded by high-level Sino-American talks – have failed to bring clarity to the political uncertainty and complexity on the Korean peninsula. No common approach – much less a strategy – emerged from either the summit or the Sino-US talks, which featured the secretaries of state and defence Rex Tillerson and James Mattis on the American side, and state councillor Yang... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2101232/hand-wringing-over-north-korea-only-benefits-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2101232/hand-wringing-over-north-korea-only-benefits-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jul 2017 02:48:05 +0000 South Koreans could be forgiven for feeling a little like Mexicans, whose unkind fate has landed them “so far from God and so close to the United States”. For Koreans, a self-described “shrimp among whales” and prone to being crushed in the game of Great Power rivalry, the situation is much more complicated and the necessity for balance and nuance in policy terms much greater. While economic security resides increasingly with China, its largest trading partner, national security with the US, its... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2094525/south-koreas-new-president-must-hit-ground-running-deal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2094525/south-koreas-new-president-must-hit-ground-running-deal?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 May 2017 09:29:07 +0000 While the White House has pulled out all the stops – eager to tout its accomplishments – in hyping the 100-day marker of Donald Trump’s presidency, which falls on Saturday, the president has characteristically declared it an “artificial barrier” and a ridiculous standard with little meaning in the scheme of things. Not so fast! Ever since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, during which 15 major pieces of legislation were passed by Congress in his first 100 days – designed to shore up the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2091435/relations-china-and-north-korea-trump-has-makings-statesman?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2091435/relations-china-and-north-korea-trump-has-makings-statesman?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Apr 2017 13:02:18 +0000 Washington’s dismissal out of hand of China’ s recent proposal to halt military exercises by the US and South Korea in exchange for a moratorium on North Korea’s nuclear weapons development and missile tests was a missed opportunity, particularly given that the alternative path of a military response is fraught with peril. The deployment of the anti-missile defence system THAAD in South Korea is a short-term fix with long-term risks. Whatever the marginal military advantage to be gained over the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2084726/us-concessions-korean-peninsula-could-go-long-way?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2084726/us-concessions-korean-peninsula-could-go-long-way?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Apr 2017 10:25:23 +0000 Washington has reacted short-sightedly in rejecting out of hand Beijing’s timely proposal for a freeze on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programmes in exchange for a halt to US-South Korean joint military exercises. Not only is this a slap in China’s face, it also undercuts the latter’s political leverage with the North Korean regime, while letting the North off the hook in the likely event that it also rejects the Chinese offer. We now confront a political situation on the Korean... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2078337/us-and-china-must-join-hands-halt-kim-jong-uns-nuclear-quest?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2078337/us-and-china-must-join-hands-halt-kim-jong-uns-nuclear-quest?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Mar 2017 05:27:08 +0000 While it wasn’t the big one – the threatened launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that the world had been primed for – US President Donald Trump nevertheless characterised the latest North Korean missile test as a “big problem”. And it came with a twist: Pyongyang upped the ante by unveiling a new class of solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile (although it flew only 500km, landing in the Sea of Japan or what Koreans call the East Sea). Still, the timing could not have been... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2071389/us-needs-chinas-help-engineer-peace-korean-peninsula?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2071389/us-needs-chinas-help-engineer-peace-korean-peninsula?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Feb 2017 07:06:50 +0000 It didn’t take long after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s Day speech vowing that the North was in the “final stage in preparations” for a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile for US President-elect Donald Trump to tweet ominously, “It won’t happen!” Following that, the North doubled down, warning that the missile would be launched “anytime and anywhere”. North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2061619/hostility-simmers-keeping-north-korean-nuclear-threat-alive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2061619/hostility-simmers-keeping-north-korean-nuclear-threat-alive?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Jan 2017 04:21:17 +0000 US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said recently at a Council on Foreign Relations forum that dissuading North Korea from continuing its nuclear development was “a lost cause”. The remark is itself a cause for alarm. North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal and increasing delivery capability could render East Asian stability itself a lost cause, substantially raising the risks of regional nuclear proliferation and disarray in America’s alliances with Japan and South Korea – as well... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2048641/under-trump-america-can-defuse-korean-nuclear-crisis-help?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2048641/under-trump-america-can-defuse-korean-nuclear-crisis-help?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2016 09:31:30 +0000 Thaad, America’s most advanced defence system, recently landed with a political thud on China’s doorstep. At least that’s the view from Beijing, whose strenuous opposition to its deployment to South Korea is rooted in the concern that the anti-missile system’s ability to lock onto its strategic deterrent directly threatens its security, irrespective of whether that is its intended purpose. For Washington and Seoul, however, the decision to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence unit was... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1995506/deployment-us-missile-defence-system-gives-china-less?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1995506/deployment-us-missile-defence-system-gives-china-less?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Jul 2016 08:05:33 +0000 It’s trite but true: “Politics makes strange bedfellows”; geopolitics even more so. US President Barack Obama’s farewell lap last week, simultaneously wading into the politics of East Asia, both north and south, underscores the axiom that “nations don’t have permanent allies, only permanent interests”. First, breaking bread in Vietnam with an old adversary; later sandwiching in a trip to Hiroshima during a G7 meeting in Tokyo highlighting the danger and devastation of nuclear weapons. And, at... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1959396/how-china-bad-cop-southeast-asia-turns-good-cop-east-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1959396/how-china-bad-cop-southeast-asia-turns-good-cop-east-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 May 2016 08:53:00 +0000 While the adoption by the UN Security Council of a resolution fine-tuning sanctions against Pyongyang with greater “bite” is a step in the right direction, demonstrating the ability of Washington and Beijing to agree on common language, it remains to be seen to what extent squeezing Pyongyang further will change the ­dynamics. The country is already heavily sanctioned and isolated internationally and – unlike with the current Iranian nuclear deal – there is no “door prize” for compliance. READ... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1922886/more-sanctions-wont-end-korean-nuclear-crisis-engaging?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1922886/more-sanctions-wont-end-korean-nuclear-crisis-engaging?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:11:37 +0000 Washington’s public rebuke of Beijing for not preventing North Korea’s recent nuclear test is like blaming the ship’s captain for rough seas. It is both diplomatically counterproductive and historically inaccurate, echoing US secretary of state John Foster Dulles’ famous refusal to shake hands with premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來) at the 1954 Geneva Conference. Still smarting years later, this slight was the first thing Zhou brought up in his 1971 discussions with then secretary of state Henry... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1903406/why-world-should-be-thanking-china-not-rebuking-it-its-role?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1903406/why-world-should-be-thanking-china-not-rebuking-it-its-role?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 20 Jan 2016 05:39:15 +0000