The impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye has plunged South Korea into election season. In less than two months, the world’s 11th-largest economy will have a new chief executive. Regardless of who wins the election, addressing the challenges facing the South Korean economy should be a high priority.

The US Secretary of State’s visit to Beijing, and his meetings with the Chinese foreign minister, ended with a pledges by both to resolutely advocate denuclearization of the Peninsula, strictly implement UN resolutions and strive for a peaceful resolution. That realistic assessment by both sides is a good omen for more collaboration between Washington and Beijing.

China and the U.S. will hold their first summit meeting this week. Though the concrete schedule has not been released, there is no doubt that the North Korean nuclear issue will be a hot topic between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump.

At a time of such global confusion, it is not Brexit, Syria’s civil war, Russian assertiveness or China’s games in the South China Sea that consistently make the newspaper headlines, but the antics and brinkmanship of a state led by a man in his early thirties who is the third generation of a Communist family cult.

Given the domestic pressures faced by the major players, especially the US, in the near future, we can only expect an extension of the current dilemma.

A new crisis is brewing on the Korean Peninsula. In mid-February, North Korea conducted an intermediate-range ballistic missile test. On March 1, the United States and South Korea began a joint military exercise that is unprecedented in scale and intensity.

Ironically, in launching its economic campaign to protest South Korean deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system, Beijing is effectively doing Washington’s bidding. U.S. policymakers long have worried about the PRC’s economic draw on the South. As China voluntarily curbs those ties, American officials couldn’t be happier.

The decision to deploy a Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in the Republic of Korea (ROK) by the ROK and the United States caused strong diplomatic reactions from China. Further negative interactions between the ROK and China may develop if the two countries cannot find a solution.