Xi Heads To Pyongyang, Moscow On His Mind

Xi is therefore likely to go to North Korea, probably not in pursuit of a complete solution to the dilemma in which he finds himself trapped, but rather to shake up the bilateral relationship. So, some form of rapprochement - a reopening of dialogue between North Korea and America - could give China a little breathing room.

After that, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could meet Trump to reach a deal on nuclear weapons. It is unclear what kind of agreement could be reached. Perhaps the visit is also meant to gauge what is feasible, but a North Korean deal could serve as a diplomatic bargaining chip to pressure the US into leaning on South Korea and Japan.

This is a puzzle with millions of pieces all in motion, so the chance of anything fitting together would be something of a miracle.

North Korea has not historically served China well. The intervention in North Korea in the 1950s cost Mao Zedong very dearly. He lost his son and heir, killed in an American bombing, and had to forfeit any plan to conquer Taiwan.

North Korea dealt the newborn Chinese regime two systemic blows to its future: the end of an imperial line of succession and the failure to destroy its existential enemy, Nationalist China, which, from Taiwan, challenged the legitimacy of communist rule in Beijing.

This trip cannot be a non-event - at least not entirely. But whatever the outcome, it remains unclear whether it will be enough to get US President Donald Trump to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and whether that will be sufficient to assuage South Korean or Japanese fears.

That something is moving in this direction is nonetheless significant. It signals that China is unhappy with what is happening on the Korean Peninsula, that the situation has not been well managed - quite the contrary - and that the top leader must step in personally to set things right.

Xi came to power by skillfully moving every lever of China's internal political machinery with undisputed ability. Mao had gained power and authority by managing war and foreign policy.

He had understood the connection between winning local consensus - among the peasants, the flesh and blood of China at that time - and the various internal and external actors stirring China.

He succeeded in purging the communist intellectuals, while also convincing non-communist intellectuals of his sincerity. Over the course of more than 20 years, he played Japanese against nationalists, Russians against Americans, each one against each other, and all for himself, to emerge in 1949 as the leader of China.

His game of cross-betrayals was blocked by the Russians, precisely in Korea. Russia's Joseph Stalin compelled him to defend Kim Il Sung - then nearly overwhelmed by the American advance - thereby severing every thread connecting him to the US and dashing his hopes of conquering Taiwan. After the Chinese intervention in Korea, the Americans deployed their fleet to defend the island.

The official reason for the Korean intervention was that China had better have a buffer between itself and a US ally. In hindsight, it's unclear whether the buffer was for China or the USSR, and whether the neighborly ties with a US ally would not have advanced China's cause better than Soviet chains.

Mao's authority - though he proved incapable of governing China and developing it economically - was never called into question, precisely because of his genius in international politics.

Xi, in some ways, finds himself working in reverse. He has shown he knows how to seize, maintain and expand his power domestically, but his judgment in foreign policy has shown flaws. This may have been the fault of the military, which in China bears primary responsibility for shaping the country's foreign strategy.

Now, with the army purged and brought to its knees, it falls to Xi to see whether he can untangle the Gordian knot he holds in his hands.