Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com

Ok, the North-South talks fizzled when neither could agree on who was truly “ministerial.” Now the question is when, how, or if the talks will happen.

No matter, the Xi-Obama summit has to be viewed as a success in view of the post-summit sideshow between negotiators of North and South Korea in Panmunjom.

Whatever the glitches, the North Koreans would never have agreed to talk had it not been for the specter of the leader of their great protector and ally jetting off to California to see the leader of their worst enemy. Remember, it hadn’t been that long since the North Koreans were refusing to meet at all with the South Koreans.

For the strategists in Pyongyang, it was as though the roof were caving in on the elaborate structure they had fashioned for months including their third underground nuclear test, test-firing of missiles, phantasmagorical threats of a nuclear holocaust hitting the U.S., and hyped-up descriptions of the Korean Peninsula as in a “state of war.” The imagery exploded as President Xi Jinping chose to spend hours in chit-chat with President Obama — a prelude to hosting South Korea’s President Park Geun-Hye, not North Korea’s “Supreme” but untested “Leader” Kim Jong-Un, later this month.

The North Korean humiliation was all the worse in view of the stage effects surrounding the summit. What were the presidents of the world’s most powerful nations doing in those glaring white shirts, savoring each other’s company as they sought to head off looming crises? Aren’t such encounters supposed to begin with leaders marching before rows of troops in their finest dress uniforms to the din of bugles and trumpets?

For all the choreographed informality of the Obama-Xi, however, quite aside from agreement on the need to rein in North Korea, the net result may not have been that great. Obama spent a lot of time on cyber espionage and cyber theft that the Americans accuse the Chinese of committing; Xi and his aides were equally firm in saying the problem was overblown and others, meaning the Americans, were also guilty.

As for seeing eye to eye on North Korea, wasn’t whatever they said a reaffirmation, a rehash, of what they’d said before?

Certainly North Korea would not have reopened the North-South hotline across the DMZ if the Chinese had been going along with the North’s rhetoric. Nor would North and South Koreans have been talking about reopening the economic zone at Kaesong, the whole point of the meeting, had the Chinese not gotten across the message that closing it was not a good idea for an economy in a perpetual state of failure.

So weak was the position of the North Koreans that they could not even stick by their earlier demand to hold the talks at Kaeseong — that is, on their side of the line — rather than in the DMZ. But all that stuff was decided on before Obama and Xi exchanged their first greetings. As noteworthy as what was said was what was not said.

Did Obama challenge China’s claims to “sovereignty” over the South China Sea? Did he raise the topic of Japanese control over those islets that the Japanese call the Senkakus and Chinese say are the Diaoyu? The U.S., it should be recalled, has pledged to defend them under terms of the U.S.-Japan security treaty.

Obama and Xi had to have been thinking of all that when Obama talked of the need for “protocols” on “military issues.” That diplomatic turn of phrase was by way of saying U.S. warships have the right to go into the South China Sea and the issue is not that of “sovereignty.” No, the Chinese were not about to agree. No sooner were the talks over than Chinese commentators were on China Central Television saying everyone had to understand China’s right to the South China Sea.

The most positive meaning of “protocols” seems to be that China won’t disturb “foreign” ships in those waters while maintaining its claim. Nor will China consider compromise on the islands that it already holds, the Paracels, claimed by Vietnam, and all the Spratlys, some of which are also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. As for the Senkakus, the best one can hope for is the Japanese won’t use real cannon rather than water cannon to drive off intruding Chinese fishing boats and research vessels and the Chinese won’t fire back in return.

If SSS, the “Sunnylands Shirtsleeve Summit,” didn’t change anything, however, it may have kept matters from getting worse. No crisis has appeared more imminent of late than that of a Second Korean war that could flare into a regional Armageddon. Obama and Xi have made sure that’s not going to happen — not as long as talking nice seems far preferable to talking tough.

  Kim Jong-Un, Panmunjom, Park Geun-Hye, South China Sea, Why talking nice in California was slightly better than not talking at all, Xi Jinping