History tells us that it’s rarely good news when there’s so much news on the Korean peninsula.

Shifting Relations in North Asia
by Gordon G. Chang
Discussions this week in Singapore between North Korean officials, led by chief nuclear negotiator Ri Yong Ho, and former special envoy Stephen Bosworth and other American figures ended in calls for the resumption of formal nuclear talks, which have been on hold since 2008. The two-day “Track Two” consultations did not result in any breakthroughs, but the lack of progress in the informal consultations comes amid a flurry of unusual diplomatic activity involving the peninsula.

There was hope in recent days that the Track Two participants might come up with a new blueprint to restart the six-party talks to “denuclearize” North Korea. Instead, Ri used the occasion to lambast Washington and Seoul for their annual joint military exercises, which he termed the “root cause” of problems on the peninsula.

Ri’s comments were not off-the-cuff. This month Pyongyang had proposed a moratorium of its nuke testing if the US and South Korea would end their large-scale drills. Significantly, Pyongyang did not offer to halt its military exercises, which are far larger than the ones in South Korea. The State Department correctly termed the North’s proposal “an implicit threat.”

While Washington-Pyongyang ties remain in the deep freeze, North Korea, South Korea, China, and Russia are reshaping the peninsula. Relations between Beijing and Pyongyang, for instance, seem to worsen by the month. Now, it appears the two capitals are barely on speaking terms, partly a consequence of the execution of Jang Song Thaek in December 2013. Jang, Kim Jong Un’s uncle by marriage, had been the primary conduit between the North and its primary sponsor China. Significantly, Beijing was not invited to the ceremony last month marking the end of the three-year mourning period for former leader Kim Jong Il.

China, for its part, has reacted to the near breakdown in ties with North Korea by following up on South Korea’s initiatives to strengthen diplomacy. In July, Xi Jinping traveled to Seoul, becoming the first Chinese leader to visit the South before going to Pyongyang. Xi has yet to visit his North Korean counterpart.

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