Summary

After a string of escalations that many worried would end in nuclear war, the crisis on the Korean Peninsula has been put on pause ever since the September 15 test of a Hwasong-12 ICBM.

From a geopolitical standpoint, nothing has changed: the Trump administration continues to hint at unilateral military action; there is no official negotiation mechanism to speak of; China is soft peddling on sanctions against Pyongyang, and the Moon administration is still trying to reconcile its desire for peace with the stonewalling it’s getting from the Kim Jong-Un regime.

So why the lull now? There are a few possibilities. One is that the North Koreans are simply running out of the advanced liquid-fuel engines used in their ICBMs. Another is that negotiators are moving behind the scenes to bring about a thaw, one that would allow a newly emboldened President Xi Jinping to take center stage as regional peacemaker.

Impact

A PRC-ROK rapprochement is in the works. Fresh from his historical consolidation of power at the 19^th Party Congress, Xi Jinping has set about mending ties with Seoul. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry put out a statement on Monday declaring that the two nations had agreed to put bilateral relations back on a “normal development path.” Their first opportunity to do so will come at the APEC summit in Vietnam next month, where a sideline meeting has been penciled in for China President Xi Jinping and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in.