Korea peace talks: Is China in or out?

THE inter-Korean summit meeting was political theatre of a high order, where two heads of state expertly played their parts, including skipping back and forth between the line dividing their two countries like schoolchildren playing hopscotch.

The denouement, while not unexpected, brought general relief to a worldwide audience. President Moon Jae In of South Korea and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea signed the Panmunjom Declaration in which they agreed to "actively cooperate to establish a permanent and solid peace regime on the Korean Peninsula".

Although fighting ceased 65 years ago after the signing on July 27, 1953 of the Military Armistice Agreement, the Korean War itself was never ended since no peace treaty was signed.