The agenda of the 2018 Asan Plenum included a keynote address, a book launch, four plenary sessions, and fourteen panels meeting simultaneously in groups of two or three. My intention is not to be comprehensive but to reflect on commentaries about challenges to the international order: the fall of the order, Sino-Russian relations and the order, the impact of sharp power, and the liberal order as viewed from various angles in the Indo-Pacific region. The shadow of the looming diplomacy with North Korea hovered heavily over the plenum; the second set of themes considered was the US alliance with South Korea and the assessments of North Korea as an outlier whose diplomacy could exert an impact on regional order and security. Such observations need to be put in the context of the dramatic development on April 27, when President Moon Jae-in met with Kim Jong-un at the DMZ to rapt global attention. The plenum was a prelude to that with sober commentaries about where diplomacy may be leading.

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