Kim Jong-un’s surprise recent visit to Beijing and Xi Jinping was an awkward get-together that didn’t address the elephant in the room – Kim’s possible face-to-face meeting soon with Donald Trump.
Jeffrey Fields, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
A former US Department of Defense and State Department official explains why a hard-line approach on North Korea will likely fail, as it did with Iran.
Kim Beazley, The University of Western Australia and L Gordon Flake, The University of Western Australia
It is not yet midnight, but as the crisis deepens, the diplomatic and military options get more and more complex. And the possibility of war with North Korea is now very real.
The International Olympic Committee has banished dopers from the Winter Games. Shame it hasn’t treated North Korea, a noted human rights violator, with the same resolve.
Meredith Shaw, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
The state-produced stories, which include tales about apartment lotteries, theme parks and the Clintons, might seem absurd. But they offer a window into the regime’s priorities and anxieties.
North Korea sending a delegation to this year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea may be a global shadow puppet show – or it might help thaw the frozen relations between the two countries.
Chrystia Freeland and Rex Tillerson should remember one point when they meet in Vancouver soon to discuss North Korea: Kim Jong-un runs a feudal gangland, not a nation state.
Michael Courts, The Conversation and Amanda Dunn, The Conversation
2017 has felt like a chaotic year in Australian politics, and one in which policy progress has been swamped by other distractions. We can only hope that 2018 is calmer and more productive.
A former diplomat and foreign policy expert explains just how easily the president could bypass objections to war, from Congress to dissenting generals.