DPRK leader Kim Jong-un's talks with President Putin in Vladivostok and then with Chairman Xi Jinping at the One Belt, One Road Forum in Beijing (where Russian and Chinese leaders are also negotiating) became the main intrigue of recent days.

Although we will not learn their details soon (such is the tradition of both Chinese and North Korean diplomacy), the main themes are obvious.

In addition to the natural discussions of economic cooperation projects (some of which have been considered since the late 80s), the key issue in full accordance with official reports was the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, that is, North Korea’s refusal of atomic technology.

At the same time, outside the framework of both official communications and, seemingly, real negotiations, the main question remains: why is the Korean atomic bomb worse than the Israeli bomb, which is much older than it? Especially considering the fact that North Korea (with all its real and perceived flaws) does not occupy the territories of neighboring countries, does not have intractable internal national and religious problems and does not carry out mass repressions.

The substantive answer is simple: the DPRK, unlike Israel, does not have a lobby in the US meaningful for their domestic policy, which makes it impossible (as well as the American NATO satellites, with the exception of England and Poland) to be real, not a fictitious ally USA.

But in diplomacy, the formal side of the issues discussed is traditionally important. The fact that Russia and China are seriously at least discussing the question of depriving the DPRK of atomic weapons (the only guarantee against American state terror today), without even mentioning a similar problem in another country, de facto means adopting American double standards and abandoning those very principles of international law, which are the core of the sovereignty of both countries.

The DPRK is the only one of the small states that stood up to direct US military blackmail. At the peak of pressure, three out of ten American aircraft carrier groups were tightened to it, and only the inflexibility of Kim Jong-un and his entourage in the face of US military blackmail allowed the DPRK to maintain independence.

“The country of morning freshness conducts a dialogue with the United States in a single language accessible to the leadership of the latter, and in this respect its experience is invaluable for all countries wishing to build constructive relations with the United States, including Russia and China.

But no less important story is the reunification of Korea. This is an extremely complicated process, since it cannot be a simple seizure (Anschluss, as it is still said in the former GDR) of one country by another, and therefore requires careful elaboration of the multi-level guarantee system and the norms of interaction between radically different elites and structures of the two countries.

The reunification of Korea was already on the informal agenda in the first half of the 2000s, but was thwarted by an extremely tough US policy that wanted to crush the DPRK just for self-assertion after the shock experienced by Bush and his entourage on September 11, 2001.

Now the logic of the economic crisis, the upcoming collapse of the world into macroregions and a breakdown in a global depression, which requires the creation of larger economic units, is pushing for the unification of the divided Korean people.

The configuration of interests in relation to the reunification of Korea is very different from the current atomic problem. The union will dramatically increase the competitiveness of South Korean corporations, which can rely not only on 28 million disciplined and undemanding workers (who live in such a way that they gain weight on Siberian logs), but also on a whole range of technologies that they lack and on a more efficient system national governance.

A natural opponent of the emergence of a new industrial giant is not only Japan, but also China, today the main partner of the DPRK: they do not need new competitors either. But the United States is objectively interested in this - if only to get a new channel of pressure on Japan, to dissolve North Korean sovereignty in South Korean dependence, and most importantly - to create at least slight difficulties for China.

Russia does not have a categorical interest in the reunification of Korea: the reduction of tension at its borders is compensated by potential threats due to the emergence of a new center of power. But the emergence of a new potential source of technology expands the range of available opportunities and therefore benefits us, not to mention that the reunification of the Korean people objectively, regardless of any attendant circumstances, will give a new hope for the reunification of the Russian people.

Perhaps it is this objective divergence of interests of the two largest allies of the era in the Korean issue was the reason that before meeting with Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un met with President Putin, and on its territory.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.