Kim Jung Un started the new year by opening the door to direct talks with South Korea, and serving up the possibility that North Korean athletes would participate in the upcoming Olympic games in Pyeongchang.

+ “Mr. Kim, perhaps sensing the simmering tension between President Trump and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, called for an urgent dialogue between the two Koreas before the opening of the Winter Olympics in the South next month.” From the NYT: Kim Jong-un’s Overture Could Drive a Wedge Between South Korea and the US.

+ Part of the North Korean story could end up being about how the world will move forward in the absence of American leadership. That’s definitely what we’re seeing in China. From Evan Osnos in The New Yorker: Making China Great Again. “For years, China’s leaders predicted that a time would come—perhaps midway through this century—when it could project its own values abroad. In the age of ‘America First,’ that time has come far sooner than expected.”