Bloomberg reports: "The impeachment of Park Geun-hye opens the door for a reset in ties with North Korea and China. The leading candidates to replace Park, who was ousted as president by South Korea's constitutional court on Friday, favor a softer touch with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. They're also open to rethinking the deployment of the Thaad missile shield, which has spurred Chinese retaliation against South Korean companies. 'The liberals believe that if you engage with North Korea, then they could get some kind of missile-test moratorium,' said John Delury, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. 'The Chinese strategy will be to push just hard enough so the South Korean public sees the cost of having Thaad, but not too hard that you unleash outrage.' The election campaign -- a vote must be held within 60 days -- will spur fresh debate on how to stop Kim from acquiring more powerful nuclear weapons and missiles. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to seek a new approach to dealing with North Korea in a trip to the region next week, though China's calls for talks have been rebuffed by the U.S., Japan and South Korea."
The New York Times reports: "It's that time again, when more than 5,000 delegates to China's National People's Congress and its advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meet in Beijing to endorse legislation and discuss government plans for the coming year. They talk about their policy ideas with the local media too, and coverage of their proposals and the online comments they attract provide glimpses into some of the issues on the minds of Chinese today...People's Congress delegate from Guangdong Province, said China should lift all controls on births and lower the legal marriage age to 18, from 22 for men and 20 for women...A group of 13 delegates to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference have proposed that parents whose negligence results in their child's injury or death should be prosecuted...Lai Xiaomin, a delegate to the National People's Congress from Hunan Province and chairman of China Huarong Asset Management, wants the seven-day holiday most workers are granted to be extended to 15 days...Song Xinfang...proposes that China build tower-style cemeteries to save land and money...Cai Jiming...said it's time to do away with maximum population targets for cities and to treat all citizens equally."
Fortune comments: "In a matter of weeks, all of China's fears have come to a head on the Korean Peninsula...This is why China's foreign minister Wang Yi, at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, proposed a deal to lower tensions and get the parties back to the table...At first glance, the proposal has its appeal. It's hard to argue, after all, that the current approach is working...But senior U.S. and South Korean officials were right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the United Nations and turn down the offer. U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley reiterated the Obama administration's position of demanding that Pyongyang first demonstrate that it is interested in complying with UN Security Council Resolutions that require walking back its nuclear ambitions. Her South Korean counterpart added a point familiar to Korea watchers: that provocation and aggression should not be rewarded with dialogue and accommodation...First, particularly given North Korea's record of evasion and deceit, any reasonable suspension would require an extraordinarily invasive verification regime...Second, U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises are not just symbolic shows of force...Finally, and this is the kicker, it's bad strategy to agree to a mutual suspension at this particular moment—even if you think negotiations are the only viable path to stabilizing the Peninsula. Instead, as the dust settles around S. Korea President Park Geun-hye's impeachment, the United States should continue working with allies and partners, as well as China, to implement fully the two UN Security Resolutions"