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from the he-would-say-that-wouldn't-he dept.
North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un has visited Beijing for his first known trip outside of North Korea since he took power in 2011:
North Korea's enigmatic young leader, Kim Jong-un, made an unannounced visit to Beijing, meeting with President Xi Jinping weeks before planned summit meetings with American and South Korean leaders, Chinese and North Korean state news media reported on Wednesday.
[...] Mr. Kim made the trip to China at the invitation of Mr. Xi, North Korea's state-run Korean Central Television reported soon after the announcement in China. Mr. Kim was accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-ju, as well as by his senior advisers, it said.
Mr. Kim told the Chinese leader that he was open to dialogue with the United States, including a potential summit meeting with President Trump, and was committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, according to an account published by China's news agency Xinhua.
"If South Korea and the United States respond with good will to our efforts and create an atmosphere of peace and stability, and take phased, synchronized measures to achieve peace, the issue of the denuclearization of the peninsula can reach resolution," Mr. Kim said, according to Xinhua's summary of his meeting with Mr. Xi.
Experts remain cynical:
Yang Xiyu, one of China's leading experts on North Korea, said that Mr. Kim was clearly trying to repair the North's deeply strained relations with Beijing, its traditional ally and benefactor, while opening new ties with its enemy South Korea. Even so, Mr. Yang said, that did not signal that Mr. Kim was willing to give up his nuclear arsenal, though he has told South Korean envoys that he was prepared to discuss the possibility. "He is starting a new game where he could make concessions on denuclearization," Mr. Yang said. "At most, he will cut the grass, but he will not pull out the roots."
Also at Reuters and Bloomberg.
See also: How does Kim tell North Korea he's giving up nuclear weapons?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 28 2018, @04:43PM (1 child)
Trump has been replacing the more reasonable members of his cabinet with warmongers.
Put enough warmongers in a room, give them an army, and an economy very dependent on the weapons industry, and you're gonna end up with a war somewhere.
Especially when that war will benefit the US, given the geography of some of the biggest competitors.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday March 28 2018, @09:15PM
Plus one of the apparent rules of US politics is that if you start a war, your popularity shoots up, regardless of how stupid and pointless that war may be. For example, the two biggest jumps in George W Bush's approval rating were (1) September 2001, where he got a 40% boost by being so incompetent that terrorists succeeded in an attack that they'd been explicitly warned about, and (2) March 2003, where he got about a 12% increase in support just after the Iraq War had started. Bill Clinton experienced a similar 10% boost in support just after he got the US involved in Kosovo. George H.W. Bush got the highest approval rating of his entire presidency right in the middle of the Gulf War.
Americans who express support for the president in wartime out of a sense of loyalty or patriotism? You're basically pushing our presidents to start wars regardless of whether they're really necessary or justified. You're costing your nation billions of dollars, and frequently thousands of lives, so that some folks back in Washington can feel better about themselves. Good job, morons.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.