The North Korean nuclear test slipped off the radar screen in the aftermath of the Democratic success on Election Day. President Bush neglected to mention Korea, North or South, while dumping Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense and acknowledging difficulties in Iraq, but that’s sure to change when Bush meets China’s President Hu Jintao Saturday at the annual gathering of leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group in Hanoi.
More than ever, with a Democratic-controlled Congress, Bush needs China to persuade North Korea of the absurdity of its nuclear and missile programs. Hawks in the Pentagon and National Security Council may want to get tough with North Korea, but Democrats clearly see negotiations as the only way to resolve the nuclear standoff.
Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter both called for bilateral talks between Washington and Pyongyang, something the Bush administration repeatedly rejected in favor of six-party talks hosted by the Chinese in Beijing.
The North Korean decision, finally, to go for the first six-party talks in a year has put off the debate about bilateral dialogue. When the talks do convene, the chief U.S. negotiator, Christopher Hill, can sit down with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Gye Gwan, on the sidelines, away from negotiators for China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, just as they were doing when the talks were going on in Beijing in 2005.
Both sides can bask in the sense that they had their way — North Korea talking directly to the U.S., the U.S. agreeing to do so only while representatives of the four other countries were nearby, ready to resume six-party talks in hopes of a deal that would not leave the U.S. to go it alone against the North.
One may be sure that North Korea, having agreed to return to the table, is doing so from what it perceives as a position of strength engendered by its belief that the Oct. 9 test of a nuclear device makes it a member of the exclusive club of nuclear powers.
Kim Jong Il, in his diabolical way, figures he can reinforce his demand for vast quantities of aid — and an end to U.S. restrictions on banks through which North Korea funneled counterfeit U.S. hundred-dollar bills — by holding out the threat of yet another nuclear test.
The Chinese decision to go along with U.N. Security Council sanctions on any dealings with North Korea that might support North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs clearly shows the Chinese wanted them to stop. China and South Korea, however, opposed a much stronger version of the sanctions that would have called for military action.
South Korea this week showed its weakness in the face of North Korean pressure, refusing to join the Proliferation Security Initiative, under which more than 70 nations have agreed to try to stop North Korea from exporting or importing anything to do with weapons of mass destruction.
South Korean leaders feared the program would obligate South Korean forces to board North Korean vessels — and were clearly intimidated by rhetoric from Pyongyang accusing them of toadying to the U.S.
Under the circumstances, it seems highly unlikely the next round of six-party talks will break down, leaving the U.S. and others to figure out yet again how to cope with the North’s nuclear ambitions.
The future of the Korean nuclear standoff remains as unsettled — and unpredictable — as ever. All that is certain is that Kim Jong Il sees the talks as a forum in which to press what he believes is the advantage of having tested a nuclear device.
What is not certain is how firmly the U.S. is prepared to stand up against him while Bush confronts a Congress predisposed against not only the war in Iraq but also any move that might risk a flare-up in Korea.
Journalist Donald Kirk has covered the Korean peninsula for more than 30 years.
