Browen Maddox’s comment article in the ES ” Is North Korea really coming in from the cold in the Olympics” is patronising. If the Germans and Vietnamese can come together after recent major conflicts, why can’t Koreans? Should reunification not be a legitimate aspiration for them since their peninsula was divided in the fifties?

At an air pollution conference, l attended in Busan in 2016, the issue of reunification came up a number of times, suggesting to me it is a clear ambition of South Koreans. So the rapprochment between North & South Koreans has more emotional capital than Donald Trump’s concern about the US losing influence in the region.

The coming together of the North & South Korean Olympic teams under one flag in the opening ceremony was telling in itself. IF this signals the start of the end of a long era of American dominance, Koreans may feel it is no bad thing.

A copy of this blog was printed as a letter in the Evening Standard letters page on the 13th of Feb.