WASHINGTON — They stood not 10 feet apart in a V.I.P. box: the 58-year-old vice president of the United States and the 30-year-old sister of North Korea’s reclusive dictator, representatives of two countries locked in a stubborn, ever more perilous nuclear standoff.
But Mike Pence and Kim Yo-jong stared fixedly ahead during the chilly, blustery opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Friday in Pyeongchang, South Korea. There would be no dramatic handshake to upstage the athletes, flag carriers, drummers or torchbearers.
The politics behind this near miss were set a week earlier in Washington, a senior administration official said, when President Trump told Mr.