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There's something in the air - for Kim Jong-un as well as for Europe.
When US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Joe Biden’s security advisor Jake Sullivan meet with China’s chief foreign policy maker Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi this Thursday in Alaska, world peace, this so often used word, will be at stake, no more and no less.
Both sides are probing whether a cold war can still be avoided, or whether a new front line runs from the Himalayas to New Zealand, from India and Australia to East Asia to Alaska - with China and Russia on one side, America, India, Japan , Australia on the other side, and North Korea and Taiwan in the middle.
America, under Trump as well as under Biden, is determined to take up the challenge.
That is why the first official trip of the top foreign policy team Joe Bidens (Defense Minister Lloyd Austin was present in Japan and South Korea) is not to Europe, but to the Far East.
So Washington insisted that the Biden government's first meeting with China be held on American soil rather than in Beijing.
America does not send atonement princes to the imperial court.
This is precisely why the USA sent a wealth of unmistakable signals to Beijing as well as to Pyongyang shortly before and during the visit.
There were some big ones and some apparently very small ones.
One of the big signals a week ago was the video summit of the "Quad", the group of four from India, Australia, Japan and the USA - Biden's first operational foreign policy meeting since taking office.
One of the big signals is that Blinken and Austin stopped at the Indo-Pacific Command of the American armed forces on the flight to Asia, shortly after its commander asked for $ 27 billion, especially for the establishment of a missile defense against China and North Korea around the Guam air base would have.
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One of these signals this week was the announcement by the US Air Force that it would be very accelerated to test a hypersonic missile with which "high-quality, time-sensitive" or "heavily shielded targets" could be attacked - a warning to China about its missile bases in Taiwan as well as to Kim Jong-un, not to feel too safe in his Mercedes columns and missile bunkers.
It was also a clear signal that Taiwan confirmed on the eve of the visit: Yes, Washington is supplying the secret technology promised by Trump for our eight new submarines.
With them, Taiwan can make life difficult for China's navy.
The US ministers, in turn, said in Tokyo that Washington would not accept Beijing's recently announced fire permit for China's coast guard against intruders at the maritime border.
The coast guard is also allowed to shoot around the Senkaku / Diaoyutai Islands, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China.
Blinken and Austin made it clear: We will defend Japan there too.
Defense Secretary Austin flies to India on Saturday, which is involved in fights with China in the Himalayas.
Biden is serious
It was also a signal to Beijing that shortly before the Alaska meeting, Washington imposed sanctions on 24 officials over Hong Kong.
Pyongyang, on the other hand, received an unmistakable message that the hurdle for discussions was higher again.
The US ministers spoke of the “denuclearization of North Korea” and no longer, like Trump and Pompeo, of the “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”, which translates as: Our nuclear weapons are ours;
we will talk about yours.
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Without words, Blinken and Austin added a message.
They wore blue buttonhole studs in Tokyo - the symbol of solidarity with the families whose relatives were kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.
Biden leaves no doubt: We mean business.
The future of a free, contract-based world order will be decided in the Indo-Pacific.
Kim is in the middle - and that is causing him a headache now.
He did not respond to attempts by the Biden government to contact him.
Kim's sister spoke up on Tuesday with a sarcastic message.
The inter-Korean dialogue with Seoul no longer makes sense, one is thinking about the dissolution of the relevant government body and also about the termination of the military agreement.
The USA, on the other hand, should be careful not to “fart around”.
Late on Wednesday evening, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, who had been part of Kim's delegation at the summits in Singapore and Hanoi, also spoke up.
It stated in a written statement to North Korea's KCNA news agency that the Biden government had indeed tried to contact Pyongyang in all possible ways.
But no answer will be given as long as Washington treats and threatens North Korea from above, as recently Blinken did in Tokyo.
Only a conversation at eye level and without degrading preconditions makes sense - and America is obviously not ready for that.
Pyongyang will answer goodwill with goodwill and demonstrations of power with demonstrations of power.
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In line with this, the US secret services are suggesting that Kim is preparing a weapons test.
This in turn would be a signal to Biden as well as to Xi Jinping.
It would mean: We are not taking sides with Beijing or Washington, and it does not occur to us to unite against us in Alaska or later.
You'd better talk to us face to face instead of talking about us in Tokyo, Seoul and Anchorage.
Whether Biden will accept this, whether the US will see Pyongyang as a potential friend against China, as they do with India, Vietnam or Mongolia, is open.
Kim strives to be the leading power of China's neighbors without explicitly mentioning China.
North Korea is a "strategic power in Northeast Asia," he says.
It will be Biden's most difficult decision in the Pacific, whether the US will accept this invitation or whether it will try to keep China by its side with a common position on Pyongyang as far as possible.
For Europe that means everything: the focus can no longer end in the Ukraine or the Hindu Kush.
Western solidarity is now in demand worldwide.
The EU sanctions against China over the Uighurs come at the right time.
Defending the world order requires unity - without relying on the fact that a cold war with China should come on bends and break and that there is absolutely no alternative.
The US doesn't do it either.
Foreign Minister Blinken ignored the Myanmar issue in the official communiqué with Japan - Chinese-financed factories have just gone up in flames.
Pogroms are not part of the world order that the West wants to defend.
International law is the core of this order, embodied by the UN.
As the only diplomatic post so far, Biden named the ambassador to the United Nations immediately after the oath of office.
He wants to enforce international law, he wants to stop autocrats going it alone - and he counts on Europe as an ally.