As nations confront the pandemic, rumors of Kim Jong-un’s death and a flurry of North Korean missile tests injected even more uncertainty in the international landscape. How do views in Washington, Seoul, and Beijing differ or align on North Korea? What are the prospects for the resumption of diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang? And how do tensions on the Korean
In the first of what will likely be many podcasts discussing some of the latest China-related revelations contained in the recent Wikileaks data-dump, our discussion today turns towards North Korea and Chinese diplomatic overtures suggesting that the country’s long-standing ally may be prepared to desert it, accepting a unified Korean peninsula under the control of an
After two days of rumors, on Wednesday March 28, the official news agencies of China and North Korea announced that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un had just completed a visit to Beijing. The “unofficial visit,” as Xinhua put it, was Kim’s first international trip since assuming power and an apparent surprise to much of the world. Amid much pageantry and with their wives
On March 8, South Korea’s National Security Advisor announced that Donald Trump had agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by May. Although now-ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson previously downplayed the announcement, a summit between the two men could drastically change U.S. policy in Asia. How does this affect China’s interests in the region? And how would
China Daily, August 7, 2017.
Tim Beal is a retired New Zealand academic who has written extensively on Asia with a special focus on the Korean Peninsula. Recent publications include the entry on Korea for
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism (New York: Springer, 2019). He has also written some chapters for a forthcoming collection: Immanuel Ness and Stuart Davis, eds.,
Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy (Leiden: Brill, 2021).
He is very grateful for the unstinting assistance of Ankie Hoogvelt and Gregory Elich in providing comments and corrections.
In August 1945, Washington’s view of the world was utterly transformed in line with the “gunboat diplomacy” dictum of Lord Palmerston countries have no permanent friends or enemies, just permanent interests.