Through the fall, Seoul’s relationship with Tokyo has been at its nadir, but relations with both Pyongyang and Washington have also been deeply troubled. While conservative and progressive articles and commentators have differed in their recommendations, neither found much basis for hope. Under pressure, concessions have been made and perceived as responses to desperation. Fear persisted: of a breakdown in US-North Korean diplomacy leading back to “fire and fury”; of the refusal of Kim Jong-un to countenance further diplomacy with Moon Jae-in, symbolized in threatened destruction of the tourist center South Koreans had built in the North; and of US troop pullbacks if burden-sharing was not massively increased. Korean images of Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump, and Abe Shinzo kept deteriorating with scant prospect that any would improve.

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