The first months of 2013 have seen a rapid intensification of combative rhetoric and action from North Korea. In the sixteen months since Kim Jong-un assumed leadership of the country, North Korea has run through the whole litany of provocations his father’s regime had deployed over a seventeen-year reign—including launching missiles, conducting nuclear tests, nullifying the armistice with South Korea, and threatening to restart its nuclear reactor and launch missile attacks on the U.S.
What is going on? What is China’s role? And, what is left for the international community to do?
ChinaFile Associate Editor Ouyang Bin sat down to discuss these questions with Ambassador Christopher Hill, former Assistant Secretary of State and chief U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korean denuclearization. Hill now serves as Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.