Come together: South Korea’s president and first lady (front) with North Korea’s head of state and Kim Jong-un’s sister.
EPA/Yonhap
North Korea clearly understands that going straight into high-level negotiations isn’t always the way to make a breakthrough.
Japanese soldiers of the Sino-Japanese War.
Wikimedia Commons
As Japanese imperialism rose and fell, its leaders interpreted and re-interpreted a single distinctive concept: “bushido”.
Coming on the heels of ‘gold’, ‘blond’ and ‘wealthy’, ‘north’ is a telling symbol of how Japan saw 2017.
EPA/Wu Hong
Still smarting from centuries of ancient humiliation, China is ready to rise to global supremacy.
EPA/Franck Robichon
How did a man once suspected of dubious far-right sympathies end up on the threshold of a record third term?
South Koreans protest against China’s treatment of northern defectors.
EPA/Jeon Heon-Kyun
Tens of thousands of North Koreans live in China. Their lives are often no better than they were at home.
EPA/Franck Robichon
As despotic personality cults go, Stalin’s example still leads the pack. But North Korea’s ruling family have taken it to a new extreme.
Uh-oh.
EPA/Kimimasa Mayama
Japan’s security is based on the guarantee that America will protect it, come what may – but that guarantee may no longer be reliable.
Could be better: daily life in Pyongyang.
EPA/Franck Robichon
Getting out of North Korea isn’t easy, but tens of thousands have managed it nonetheless.
EPA/Fred Dufour Jr
China’s Xi Jinping has a crucial political manoeuvre to execute at home – and North Korea has stolen the limelight.
Back with a bang.
EPA/Franck Robichon
Pyongyang’s latest test isn’t the great leap forward it purports to be.
EPA/How Hwee Young
Far from a belligerent rogue state, North Korea is isolated, broke and hungry for attention.
Not having it: a protest outside the US embassy in Seoul.
EPA/Jung Ui-chel
South Korea has a very particular part to play in handling Pyongyang, but Moon Jae-in has a different one in mind.
Kim Jong-il, with whose government the US negotiated the 1994 agreement.
Nicor via Wikimedia Commons
Kim Jong-il and Bill Clinton looked to have done a deal to curb North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme for good. What went wrong?
Compared to China’s highly developed cities, the western regions are still dark at night.
NASA
For China’s ethnic minorities, the state’s development programme is a matter of political control.
A North Korean government picture claiming to show the country’s first successful ICBM test.
EPA/KCNA Handout
Intentionally or not, Trump’s approach to North Korea makes more sense than many people think.
EPA/Joy Mu
China’s conventional military assets are intimidating enough, but its latest technological advances could transform the military balance in its neighbourhood.
Moonrise.
EPA/Jeon Heon-Kyun
Since the late 1970s, East Asia has seen fewer deaths in conflict than any other continent. Can it keep the peace?
Moon Jae-in (L) seems to be outpacing his rivals.
EPA/Chung Sung-Jun
Seoul’s Blue House looks set to host its first liberal president in a decade.
EPA/Javier Lizon
There’s nowhere quite like Japan – or at least, that’s how the Japanese government tells it.