There can be no doubting that North Korea is not a good place to live unless you happen to be one of the elite nomenklatura who enjoy the luxuries denied most citizens. It has been described as an economically incoherent slave state which is only sustained by continuing support from China. Beijing has joined the international community in deploring Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests. For the rest of the world, which treats North Korea and its dictatorship headed by Kim Jong-un as a pariah, the country is a major threat. The latest testing of two missiles has heightened international anger and anxiety. Although one of the rockets exploded shortly after it was launched, the other flew successfully and landed in Japanese territorial waters. This is dangerous political brinkmanship. But then Pyongyang would argue that it is the victim of equal brinkmanship from South Korea and its ally the United States. Seoul and Washington have agreed to deploy a new anti-missile defense system. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) rocketry is designed to respond to a North Korean missile launch within seconds, striking the rockets in flight. It is a moot point whether this would happen over North or South Korean territory. Given Washington's reinforcement of its military presence in the south, up from 12,000 four years ago to 28,000 today, Kim Jong-un can reinforce his argument that his state of 25 million people, half the population of the south, is beleaguered and under constant threat. It is this meme that has dominated North Korean propaganda since the uneasy truce that ended three years of north-south fighting in 1953. It was China that saved North Korea from imminent defeat by NATO forces and it has been China that has sustained the Kim dynasty ever since. What Washington and its allies need to understand is that China is now using North Korea as a proxy to confront them at a time when Beijing is also asserting its military might in the South China Sea and elsewhere. Beijing knows Pyongyang will never attack China; such an assault would be suicidal. It is also pleased that the Kim regime is seriously muddying the regional geopolitical and military waters. Perhaps one of the few sensible things that Donald Trump has said in his campaign for the White House is that he would be prepared to talk directly to Kim Jong-un. It would of course do little good - Beijing would see to that - but it could nevertheless serve to defuse the dangerous tensions that have built up. Kim would want to seize the political triumph of meeting a US president. If the encounter could not be face-to-face, a hotline could be established between Pyongyang and Washington. The Chinese might encourage this, if only to discomfit US allies in the region who might start to question America's past unwavering military support. Whoever wins the US presidency in November, it has to be asked if a radical new approach needs to be considered. Those who argue that Washington's past robust posture has contained the North Korean threat have to take into account the fundamental changes brought about by China's revanchist military power. Talking to North Korea, without preconditions, might just be a way to short-circuit the rising threat to regional peace.
