Taming Pyongyang is akin to playing rounds of charades

WATCHING the flailing (and failing) attempts by US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to stamp their authority on the North Korean "crisis", veteran observers (including myself) of the East Asia scene have experienced a strong sense of deja vu this week.

Washington and its allies (notably Tokyo but also Seoul in recent days) have been railing at Pyongyang over its latest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch while vilifying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un - without asking him just what he thinks he's up to.

This takes me back to the year 2000 when I attended the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Nago, Okinawa, to which Rus…