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North and South Korea Set Summit, but Nuclear Omission Casts a Shadow

IN THIS ISSUE: North and South Korea Set Summit, but Nuclear Omission Casts a Shadow, What is China's Nuclear New Normal?, Why Did Kim Jong Un Just Visit China?, Differing Views of 'Denuclearization' Complicate North Korea Talks, European Powers Press for Iran Sanctions to Buttress Nuclear Deal, Walls and Ladders: The Latest UN Panel of Experts Report on North Korea Sanctions

Published on March 29, 2018

North and South Korea Set Summit, but Nuclear Omission Casts a Shadow

Andrew Jeong | Wall Street Journal
North and South Korea set a date for a meeting between leaders of the two countries, but failed to finalize an agenda for the summit, including whether the North’s nuclear program would be part of the talks. The summit on April 27 would bring a North Korean leader to the South for the first time and be only the third meeting between leaders of the rival states.

What is China's Nuclear New Normal?

Mark Hibbs

Xi Jinping, at a May 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, described a secular decline in the rate of China’s GDP growth as a “new normal” condition. Since then, the term “new normal” has become shorthand in China for the challenges that the economy will face in coming years, perhaps for decades. Leaders in Beijing use Xi’s words to lower the expectations of Chinese who have taken for granted dizzying rates of wealth and welfare gains recorded since modernization was launched in the 1980s.

Why Did Kim Jong Un Just Visit China?

Ankit Panda | Atlantic
For months, China seemed to be a side player as relations improved between North Korea and South Korea. Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, kicked off the year with an address celebrating the completion of his nuclear deterrent after months of boasting about his increasing nuclear capability. In his speech, he also expressed interest in North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympics. That, in turn, provided Moon Jae In, the president of South Korea, with the diplomatic opening he sought. What followed: an exchange of conciliatory gestures at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, which set the stage for a meeting in Pyongyang between Kim and a team of South Korean envoys. Those same envoys then presented an invitation from Kim to meet with President Donald Trump, who had threatened North Korea’s total destruction; Trump immediately accepted. Seoul, it seemed, was in control of the fate of the Korean Peninsula.

Differing Views of 'Denuclearization' Complicate North Korea Talks

Josh Smith | U.S. News and World Report
Washington is unlikely to be able to credibly provide such assurances in the wake of its interventions in Iraq and Libya, said Vipin Narang, an associate professor at MIT's Security Studies Program. "If that’s what the North wants for denuclearisation...Not a chance it’s going to happen," he said. North Korea is more likely to offer something that might limit or cap its nuclear program, without immediately eliminating it, analysts say.

European Powers Press for Iran Sanctions to Buttress Nuclear Deal

Robin Emmott and John Irish | Reuters
France, Britain and Germany sought on Wednesday to persuade their EU partners to back new sanctions on Iran to preserve a nuclear deal with Tehran that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of in May, diplomats said. The new measures proposed by London, Paris and Berlin were discussed by the EU’s 28 ambassadors and could include members of Iran’s most powerful security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), diplomats said.

Walls and Ladders: The Latest UN Panel of Experts Report on North Korea Sanctions

Andrea Berger and Shea Cotton | War on the Rocks
In a recent conversation about the state of implementation of UN sanctions on North Korea, one Southeast Asian official lamented, “We are a year’s worth of UN resolutions behind.” It was no ordinary year, either. In 2017, the United Nations Security Council was a veritable conveyor belt of sanctions on North Korea, propelled by the U.S. government’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Four new resolutionssignificantly expanded the scope of sanctions to include major restrictions on North Korean export revenue streams, maritime commerce, and access to the international financial system
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