YOU have to pinch yourself when thinking about the change. Barely three months ago the Korean peninsula appeared to teeter on the brink. As Kim Jong Un hurled ballistic missiles into the seas around him, having recently tested a nuclear bomb (the sixth), hawks serving President Donald Trump seemed to be pushing to give North Korea a bloody nose. They argued that strikes would destroy Mr Kim’s nuclear ambitions. More likely, they would plunge the peninsula into appalling conflict.
And now? A member of the Kim dynasty has visited South Korea for the first time since the end of the Korean war in 1953. South Korean and other Western coverage in the past few days has breathlessly reported how, at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Mr Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, stole the show—along with an escort of North Korean cheerleaders described by the South’s press as an “army of beauties”. Ms Kim’s modest if fetching outfit, her demure smiles, the touching deference to her (unrelated)...Continue reading
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