Over the past two years, the Obama administration has focused greater diplomatic attention and military resources on East Asia as part of a policy described as a "pivot" or "rebalancing." While American leaders are loath to admit it publicly, this is a response to China's growing influence, particularly Beijing's territorial claims around its borders.

Executive chairman Eric Schmidt and former Gov. Bill Richardson said they urged North Korea's government to drop barriers to Internet access to boost its impoverished economy. Officials in the isolated country, they added, appeared open to technological exchanges.

A private delegation including Google's Eric Schmidt is urging North Korea to allow more open Internet access and cellphones to benefit its citizens, the mission's leader said Wednesday in the country with some of the world's tightest controls on information.

From her statements and pledges during the election, president-elect Park Geun-hye’s plan for North Korea policy appears less antagonistic than the Lee Myung-bak administration’s approach, but not as conciliatory as that of the Roh Moo-hyun administration.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s planned trip to North Korea promises few returns for the company’s shareholders. But for the world’s most locked-down country, where only a few thousand citizens have internet access at all, his visit could offer the strongest hint yet of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s tortured longing for openness.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year's broadcast on state media.

"I will definitely keep my promise to open a new era of the Korean peninsula through strong security and diplomacy on the basis of mutual trust," the 60-year old conservative leader said. During the campaign, both Park and her main challenger Moon Jae-in offered competing commitment to improve ties with Pyongyang and its new leader Kim Jong-un.