A former U.S. intelligence analyst says North Korea’s cancellation of government-level talks with the South shows that the communist regime was not genuinely committed to dialogue.

John McCreary said “stumbling over trivial slights with great indignation is the North’s shopworn way of avoiding a commitment it never intended to keep,” as he noted that the talks collapsed after the two Koreas failed to narrow differences on who should lead the delegations on each side.

McCreary said the timing of the cancellation “strongly suggests the North had no intention of keeping the agreement one day longer than needed” to provide a fig leaf to Beijing during the China-U.S. summit.

The former analyst said that if the North really needs the cash, the issue surrounding the level of chief delegates to the inter-Korean talks will soon be resolved. He said if the issue “is not fixed soon, the inference would be strong that North Korea was obliging China for the sake of the summit.”