Meeting in Singapore on Tuesday, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed a feel-good document that outlines lofty ambition but no specifics. It could -- emphasis on could -- eventually lead to substantive negotiations. It could -- emphasis on could -- eliminate the threat of nuclear attack against the US by North Korea.Or it could lead to nothing but the next round of trouble.That’s because Kim’s words alone, his signature on a piece of paper, are worth nothing. Just as

President Donald Trump could never be accused of underestimating the impact of Chinese economic espionage and technology transfer on the United States. “We’re talking about big damages,” he said when discussing retaliation for intellectual property theft in a January interview. “We’re talking about numbers that you haven’t even thought about.”His tariffs and a recently floated proposal to restrict certain Chinese researchers in the US are calibrated to be equally tough. But will they work?To ans

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reportedly once said that he enjoyed trying to change the course of history, even if that meant “throwing rocks into glass houses and listening to the shattering of glass.” So it’s no wonder he thinks that US President Donald Trump would be a great Brexit leader.“Imagine Trump doing Brexit,” Britain’s chief diplomat told a room of 20 Conservative Party guests at a private dinner Wednesday night, in an off-the-record talk leaked to Buzzfeed. “He’d go in bloody h

Almost any foreign official, businessman or journalist visiting Beijing has heard the mantra that China can’t be expected to open up its markets or meet more stringent international standards because it’s still a developing economy. Maybe that argument was valid 20 years ago. Now it’s increasingly tenuous. More importantly, it’s damaging to China and the world.Pleading poverty ignores the tremendous economic progress China has made in the last few decades. When China joined the World Trade Organ

Sir, the eyes of the world are on you this week.Please be gracious enough to do away with your nuclear weapons and let the world breathe in peace. You have made your point, that even a small country can stand up to the super powers and hold its own. Now, it’s time to bury the hatchets of the past and move to a new future. It is time for you to focus on the welfare of your own citizens. Let them have the best foods, housing, education, music, movies, books and technology. Let them live wonderful

Once upon a time, Congress had the lead role in trade policy. Think back to the “tariff of abominations” of the 19th century or Smoot-Hawley of the 20th in your high school history class. So how did the presidency come to take charge of trade to the extent that it’s news when a bipartisan group in the Senate and some House Republicans move to reclaim that power? And why is that objective probably unachievable?　Jennifer Delton, at Made by History, describes how trade-supporting liberals, beginnin

On May 31 I published an op-ed together with Bandy X. Lee that ended asking: “Will we not only finally end the Korean War but peacefully reconfigure international relations in the greater Pacific region?” We added (with slight updating): “The current situation in Asia is a major threat to world peace, not just a matter involving the US. Therefore, an expanded summit now needs to be arranged and should include China, South Korea and the United Nations and maybe Japan and Russia as well.”The day a

Many conflicts are not based on facts or actual conflicts of interest. Quite a few international disagreements are caused by misperceptions, misunderstandings and errors in thinking. Communication at the very least may help reveal misconceptions, which sometimes leads to reassessments or corrections.The same can be applied to the current round of talks between South and North Korea and the USA. History never repeats itself, though the North-South Korean conflict is part of an ongoing greater Eas