North Korea blamed the United States’ “hardline position” for the lack of progress in six-party talks in Beijing that began Wednesday. Officials from the United States, China, Russia, Japan and North and South Korea are meeting to discuss North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and Washington’s demand that the reclusive and isolationist Communist country dismantle its program. Many blame North Korea’s unraveling — its economic collapse and abysmal human rights record — on its “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-Il. But in his new book “North Korea: Another Country,” University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings also puts blame on the United States. The Korean War devastated North Korea, where three million people died. And the United States’ push to reunite the North and South, Cumings argues, prompted North Korea to build its fortress-like state. Tonight, On Point, the talks in China, and pulling the curtain on North Korea’s nuclear threat.

Guests:

Gordon Fairclough, Asia correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.