Buscador avanzado

The Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, June 2018 Leah Millis / Reuters

Seventy years ago this week, the armistice that froze the Korean War was signed. During a year of savage battlefield maneuvering and two more of bitter stalemate, nearly 40,000 American troops gave their lives. Several thousand more allied troops also died, as did millions of Koreans, many of them heroically in combat against communist aggression, and even more as its civilian victims. The southern half of the Korean peninsula, now a thriving democracy, took decades to recover. The northern half never has, remaining impoverished, oppressed, and a source of instability.

The median age of surviving U.S. Korean War veterans is around 90.…  Seguir leyendo »

China’s immediate priorities would be evacuating its citizens from affected areas, defending its border, preventing an inflow of refugees, and safeguarding North Korea’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons stockpiles.

Locating and securing weapons of mass destruction would likely be a shared objective for China and all other governments involved, and could offer scope for cooperation, eventually under U.N. auspices. China has consistently maintained that it wants denuclearization for the entire peninsula and it would likely seek to ensure that Seoul did not end up with control of nuclear weapons. China’s domestic security apparatus also would have concerns about smuggling that could lead to proliferation.…  Seguir leyendo »

Getting Rid of North Korea’s Dictator, With China’s Help

President Trump has not been shy in saying the United States could go it alone in dealing with North Korea. Raising the alarming specter of a second Korean War, the president has effectively affirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s warning that unilateral military action to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has not been ruled out.

North Korea is on the agenda as Mr. Trump hosts President Xi Jinping of China this week at his Florida estate. Could Mr. Trump’s hints about his North Korea policy show that he plans to enlist Beijing in ousting the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un? And was the missile attack against a Syrian airbase, launched just after Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

A statue of a Chinese air force soldier from the Korean war looks out from Dandong in the direction of North Korea. Photo via Getty Images.

The greatest challenge of handling North Korea is not so much the highly volatile, unpredictable nature of the country itself. Were a country with the political system and behavioural traits of North Korea to be located, for instance, in Africa, or Central Asia, or even Latin America, it would be far less problematic. The greatest issue is that it sits right next door to China, the world’s great emerging power, and acts as a frontier between Chinese ambition and its reach into the wider world and US constraint.

Seen in this context, Donald Trump blithely telling President Xi Jinping that if the Chinese cannot deal with North Korea, then the US unilaterally will, is an incendiary comment.…  Seguir leyendo »

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves at parade participants at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, on May 10. (Wong Maye-E/Associated Press)

If Hillary Clinton is elected, her national security team plans to urgently address the growing North Korean nuclear and missile threat. That would surely raise tensions on the Korean peninsula — and it could also lead to an early and acrimonious confrontation between a Clinton administration and the Chinese government of Xi Jinping.

Xi is staunchly opposed to Clinton’s plan to drastically increase sanctions on the regime of Kim Jong Un. At the Munich Security Conference Core Group meeting here last week, Chinese officials and experts delivered a clear and unequivocal message to the visiting Westerners: China will not take any steps against Pyongyang that might increase the chance of a confrontation with the North Korean regime or encourage regime change on China’s border.…  Seguir leyendo »

Following a visit to China, South Korea and Japan three years ago, I argued it was long past time for the United States to get serious about the North Korea threat and China's continued support for the Kim Jong Un regime.

Yet here we are in 2016, on the heels of a missile launch and North Korea's fourth nuclear test -- a test that may well represent a significant technological advancement of North Korea's nuclear program -- and there is no sense of urgency or substantive change in U.S. policy.

This week the U.S. Senate will join the U.S. House of Representatives in passing legislation that sends a strong bipartisan message: North Korea is a serious threat to U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

The talks that begin on Friday in California between President Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, offer a unique opportunity for the two leaders to forge a personal relationship and frankly address major issues. Among these none is more urgent than North Korea.

During the past year and a half of under the new Kim Jong-un regime, North Korea has accelerated development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has even threatened to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the United States, something that it cannot yet do and is most unlikely ever to attempt but that American leaders must take seriously.…  Seguir leyendo »

El contraste entre la situación en la península coreana y a través del Estrecho de Taiwán no puede ser mayor. Ambos contenciosos son legado de una guerra fría que en Asia está aún por cerrar. El conflicto ideológico subyace en el origen paralelo y casi simultáneo de la división entre las dos Coreas y entre China y Taiwán, pero sus trayectorias a día de hoy son diametralmente opuestas.

Ha habido hace poco, semanas de gran tensión en torno al paralelo 38. La espiral de sanciones, ejercicios militares y amenazas de altos vuelos parecía no tener fin. Pese al apaciguamiento que ahora se respira todo indica que podríamos volver de nuevo a revivir la misma situación si el frágil compromiso logrado deriva en un nuevo bloqueo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ten years after the U.S. attack on Iraq the question remains: Were U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair cunning liars with their claims of weapons of mass destruction? Or were they just stupid?

A Moscow experience I endured many years earlier over a very different war — Vietnam — suggests that belligerence more than makes up for any lack of intelligence suffered by our leaders. I relate that experience belatedly since it is very relevant to what is happening today over North Korea. It could also throw some light on a hitherto secret corner of big power confrontation history.…  Seguir leyendo »