Following Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s address, most of the media and analytical focus tended to revolve around his “nuclear button,” his statement that North Korea would begin “mass production” of nuclear weapons, or more hopefully, his surprising outreach toward the South Korean government of Moon Jae-in, which has resulted in the first official inter-Korean dialogue in more than two years. Lost in the clamor was perhaps the most revealing line of Kim’s speech: that of inter-Korean relations being “an internal matter that the south and north should resolve on their own responsibility.”
