With Trump to meet Kim, the real Korean games have only just begun

A smiling sister, beautiful cheerleaders and an unprecedented invitation to the US president. It looks rosy, but a shadow hangs over North Korea’s charm offensive

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Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:15pm, 9 Mar 2018Updated: 3:08pm, 9 Mar 2018

The president of the United States plans to meet the North Korean leader by May, a meeting with no precedent that leaves little sense of what to expect. The North Korea nuclear crisis has long been a storm full of wave after wave of recycled headlines, but it has finally reached the shore of an undiscovered country. Where does it go from here?

The Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games have almost allowed people to forget the world is at the brink of nuclear war, a state of affairs brought on by the reckless and often puerile game of chicken between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. Absent from their back-and-forth had been any whiff of diplomacy or grace under pressure, as if turning whole cities into charred wastelands and leaving millions dead had already become a foregone conclusion.

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But then Kim’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, stole the Olympic spotlight last month when she became the first member of the Kim dynasty to visit the South by attending the opening ceremony and delivering to President Moon Jae-in an invitation to Pyongyang.

Kim Yo-Jong and Mike Pence at the Pyeongchang Olympics opening ceremony. Photo: AFP

Now, South Korean envoy Chung Eui-yong has gone to Washington after a visit to Pyongyang earlier this week, conveying to Trump an invitation to meet with Kim himself.

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This has many critics wringing their hands, as it remains unclear just what Pyongyang wants or the degree to which anyone outside the regime can trust its new envoy. But what’s clear is that the regime is attempting an about-face from vitriolic sabre-rattling to the smiling face of Kim’s own sister, a battalion of beautiful cheerleaders who attended a number of Olympic events and an offer to denuclearise along with an invitation to meet Trump face-to-face.