What do people think of the New York Philharmonic's trip to North Korea? I hear people comparing it to the US ping-pong visit to China in 1971 but I don't think its really a good analogy. The ping-pong visit is often credited with helping to open US-Chinese relations and helping set the stage for Nixon's vist to China. But I think the US-China and US-North Korea situations are very different. With China's fear of a Soviet invasion and the US wanting to get out of Vietnam (and exploit the Soviet-Chinese split) the US and China were activly looking for a way to patch-up their differences. I just don't see the same possibilities for the US and North Korea. In fact I think North Korea can't allow a real improvement in relations with the US (or the west in general). I may be wrong, but it seems to me North Korea's only leverage these days is its threat to to bad things, specially nuclear things. If it gives this up (as Kadafi did in Lybia) what has the regime got left?
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