A British think tank warns that the deadlock on the Korean Peninsula will continue for the time being as South Korea has lost its mediating role in peninsula affairs to China. 

The International Institute for Strategic Studies made this assessment in its 2020 Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment report published Friday.

The report said that dialogue between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in stalled in 2019 mainly because Washington insisted that "Seoul remain in lockstep with its maximum-pressure campaign." It said this prevented Moon from advancing the cooperative measures that he and Kim had discussed in 2018.

The institute said the value of inter-Korean dialogue fell sharply with the establishment of direct lines of communication between North Korea and the United States, and relations between Beijing and Pyongyang strengthened when relations between Pyongyang and Washington soured over denuclearization talks. 

The report assessed that restored relations between Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping served to neutralize President Moon's mediating role.

It concludes that the deadlock on the Korean Peninsula will not easily be broken in the near term, and that the direction of inter-Korean relations would be determined not by Seoul but between Pyongyang and Washington.