When the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear issue were first held in 2003, this seemed the way to go. China’s keenness to host them showed a welcome proactiveness by its new leaders, after long passivity to the nasty crisis brewing on its borders. Also, this was a full house: both Koreas plus all four powers – China, the United States, Japan and Russia – bound to the Korean Peninsula by geography or history. Hopes ran high that this format would get somewhere.