Posted on 08/13/2007 1:09:56 AM PDT by Sockdologer
By all means sup with Kim Jong Il. But use a long spoon—and don't spend the night
IF YOU don't entertain much, your guests may be unreasonably chuffed when you do ask them round. Kim Jong Il, the ruler of North Korea, must recall the euphoria he helped generate in South Korea seven years ago when he met its then president, Kim Dae-jung, for the first and only summit between the two countries. Having waited long enough for his invitation to regain its scarcity value, the tousle-haired dictator is at it again.
As before, the outside world has nothing to lose and much to gain from hearing what Mr Kim has to say—even more so since in the interim he has acquired a few nuclear weapons. But the South's current president, Roh Moo-hyun, would be well-advised to play down expectations about his summit with Mr Kim in Pyongyang at the end of the month. The meeting will rekindle dreams of a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons and perhaps even reunified as one country. But Mr Kim's only aim is to keep his dreadful regime in power.
Even so, the moment is more propitious than for some years for achieving the limited goals a summit should set itself: of easing tensions on the peninsula, where the war of 1950-53 has never formally ended (just this week seemingly pointless gunfire was exchanged across the border); and of coaxing North Korea out of isolation. In February, after talks between the two Koreas, America, China, Japan and Russia, Mr Kim agreed to close down his plutonium-producing nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and some other plants in exchange for international aid in the form of fuel oil. Long stalled by a squabble over about $25m of North Korean funds frozen in a bank in Macau, that deal is at last moving. Last month the nuclear plants were closed down—if not yet irreversibly. The International Atomic Energy Agency praised this co-operation. The six-country talks resumed, meaning their five working groups—covering, for example, denuclearisation and normalising relations with America and Japan—also start work again.
It is far too early, however, to believe that North Korea is really ready to come in from the cold. Mr Kim's outbreak of hospitality may stem from two cynical political calculations. He knows that a visit to Pyongyang, giving Mr Roh something to show for his conciliatory approach to North Korea, will help his standing at home. Mr Roh's term ends in December, and polls suggest that the opposition—which favours a harder line—will win the presidential election. Not for the first time, Mr Kim may want to meddle in the South's politics. No time for another Mulligan
Second, Mr Kim's real skill—overshadowing even his fabled golfing talents (an 18-hole course in 19 strokes)—lies in sowing dissension among his negotiating partners. The unity of the other five countries in dealing with Pyongyang is a rickety structure built of conflicting aims. For obvious reasons, South Korea, occupying the now-rich half of a country arbitrarily sliced in two by a bloody war, is the softest touch of the five. Japan, outraged at the abduction by North Korea of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, hangs tougher. China, Mr Kim's only foreign friend, wants to avoid the collapse of his government and the flood of refugees it might bring. America, too, does not want the region to become another global crisis. But it badly wants to stop Mr Kim from making bombs.
North Korea's regime, despite its manifest failures (even to provide enough to eat), has survived in the cracks in the international system: the Sino-Soviet split; the suspicion between America and China; Seoul's fraught relations with Tokyo. The most important message Mr Roh can take to Pyongyang is that those cracks have narrowed, and no amount of wheedling or bluster from Mr Kim will allow them to widen.
Ping!
Actually, I was amazed to discover that little ‘Kim has many foreign friends.
Zimbabwe, Macao and Romania under Ceaucescu all have been loyal friends to Kim. Iran and Syria have become close to NK as the nuclear issue became important to each. Even Chavez has strengthened ties with them.
NK is a criminal enterprise and countries that trade with it deserve to be scrutinized for corruption. Even the parrots in South Korea.
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