The substance of the Singapore summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is a complete mystery. Will they discuss little more than agreeing to more discussions? Will Kim make a dramatic concession on his nuclear arsenal? Will Trump respond with a drawdown of US troops on the peninsula? Will they finally end the Korean War?　To answer some of these questions, I talked to someone who has dealt with the North Koreans before: Victor Cha. Now a professor at Georgetown and chair of the Korea program

As we approach the Singapore Summit between Kim Jung-un and Donald Trump -- two volatile leaders drawn inexorably to the flame of international publicity without a clear idea of how the talks will come out -- there is a larger agenda at play that is far less visible to the public.　While North Korea and the US play a simple game of checkers, with characteristic stops and starts, the Chinese have an entirely different board game open in front of them -- the ancient game of Go.What is China up to?

Yes, according to George Soros speaking at the European Council on Foreign Relations last week. Five days later, I heard him elaborate on this view at the Trento Economics Festival in Northern Italy. For an Italian city to celebrate economics as a science is remarkable at a time when the economics profession has lost considerable credibility and trust. This was more so when the Italians finally managed to form a government two months after the elections last March.　This is a government formed fr

The Singapore summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un will be the most riveting reality show of the Trump presidency.　It’s not just the optics of two leaders who are consummate showmen with daunting hairdos trying to upstage each other in front of a zillion cameras. And it’s not just the unpredictability -- as the secretive but shrewd North Korean faces a US leader who hates briefings and loves to deviate from his script.　This is about real stuff, about whether a North Korea that is a ful

Has North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un, made a strategic decision to trade away his nuclear program, or is he just engaged in another round of deceptive diplomacy, pretending he will denuclearize in exchange for material benefits for his impoverished country?This is, perhaps, the key question in the run-up to the summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore on Tuesday. Until then, no one will know the answer, perhaps not even Kim himself.Optimists tend to believe that Kim’s declar

As officials from the United States and North Korea prepare for the June 12 summit meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, nuclear experts must come to terms with a significant question: If Kim commits to dismantling his nuclear stockpile, how can the world be sure that he is following through?There is no question that North Korea poses a unique challenge to the nuclear nonproliferation regime; the political context for advancing disarmament globally is very different. Still, the technical

Lately the North Korean nuclear issue has affected the tripartite relationships among the two Koreas and the US: North Korea and the US have become the direct parties for the nuclear negotiations with South Korea as a third party providing good offices or playing the role of a mediator. It is very difficult to understand why the country which will become the primary target of North Korea in case of military conflicts on the Korean Peninsula is not the main party to nuclear negotiations. Some arg

Giant bales of recycled paper and plastic are piling up across the US. Six months ago, most of them would’ve been bound for China, the world’s leading importer of recyclables. But earlier this year, China started restricting and even banning some of those imports on environmental grounds. It’s a crowd-pleasing policy for the Chinese government, but the real beneficiaries are up-and-coming Southeast Asian economies keen to relocate China’s “workshop to the world” to their own industrial parks.　 O