The end US influence in Asia Pacific?

Kim Jong Un invites South Korean President Moon to Pyongyang - CNN

Now that North Korea has gained a serviceable nuclear weaponry, it feels confident enough to engage the South in it's own terms. South Korea may also feel that creating a separate peace treaty with North Korea is the best way to go as US policy to contain North Korea has failed. If this idea makes headway, China and Japan may also jump on board in the interest of regional peace and trade opportunities. Whatever the case, I see it as the beginning of S. Korea starting off their own independent foreign policy and an increasingly peripheral role of US.

A unified Korea would be a major economic force in the region.
However the chances of unifying such widely divergent political entities is remote indeed.
The people of north Korea are so heavily controlled in every way, that open contact between the peoples would break the system entirely.
Some sort of restricted peace and trade agreement is probably the best that can be hoped for.
It is very like the old East and west Germany situation, when the wall came down the game was over.

The north Korean leadership are well aware of this and will resit it in every way.

That's not an option realistically. CNN is wearing rose colored glasses on this one.

And what is the problem with that? The US doesn't need to be world police. It would be great if it does happen.

I wish the US would get out of Asia and the Pacific and take the worse aspects of consumerist capitalism with them. If there was one good thing the US could have done in Asia, it would be helping Tibet regain it's nationhood- but of course the US is only in Asia for profit. Is that a surprise?

In Japan, there's a lot a hope for a cultural revival, which I don't think would be necessarily good if it's all political. If Buddhism and Shinto are restored to their rightful place among Japan's people though- that would be fantastic.

Among young Japanese there has been a resurgence of interest in Buddhism and Shinto in a traditional framework.

The Chinese would not likely welcome Korean reunification, especially if the government is pro-western, which is why they keep propping up NK.

metis said:

The Chinese would not likely welcome Korean reunification, especially if the government is pro-western, which is why they keep propping up NK.

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I'm not trying to be non-patriotic to western civilization by saying I think the time of the west's power, and particularly the Pax Americana- is coming to an end. I'm calling it as I see it.

The sun of the east will rise over the west, to put it poetically. China is probably a major world player in the coming future. India has a potential to be with all it's people and ways that it is currently disenfranchised on the world stage.

It will be good if the age of Team America World Police ends because just maybe China, et al will work out a true and well-meaning peace with the Middle East. Certainly, they have no historical motivation for wars of profit with the Middle East.

The Pacific particularly has remained neutral in these conflicts.