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On the surface, the prospects for any progress in talks between the U.S. and North Korea seem slim. During the Presidential campaign, the Bush foreign policy team blasted the Clinton Administration for being soft on Pyongyang and promised to hew to a harder line. The outlook looked bleaker in March, when South Korean President Kim Dae Jung visited Washington. Not having yet looked into the soul of North Korean strongman Kim Jong Il , President Bush denounced him as untrustworthy and declared that talks with Pyongyang wouldn't be resumed any time soon.
Bush's words not only undermined Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had said talks would pick up where the Clinton Administration had left off, but they also painted as naive South Korea's Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize winner. And they predictably angered Pyongyang, which labeled the new Administration hostile and spouted its typical bellicose rhetoric. Tensions further escalated when Team Bush added conventional force reduction to the prickly issues of nuclear weapons and missile proliferation, which Bush declared should be discussed with Pyongyang.
PLAYING THE GAME. But look behind the rhetoric, and you'll see a different dynamic: An easing of tension and resumption of negotiations may still be in the offing. Both sides have strong incentives to move forward. Indeed, their harsh words might be viewed as mere posturing before negotiations begin. Nathaniel Thayer, an Asia expert at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says the North Koreans are particularly hard bargainers. "Anything you get from them, you have to wring out of them," he says. "That's the way the game's played."
The North still has many reasons for trying to strike a deal. To believe that it wants a continuing stalemate is to dismiss the summit between the North and South last year as meaningless, when in fact it was a historic breakthrough. Kim Jong Il especially needs connections with players in the outside world now that China is fed up with the North's failure to reform itself. Pyongyang remains in desperate need of both food and energy.
Indeed, BusinessWeek Online has learned that the North Koreans asked for a meeting with the Bush Administration in New York on July 13. At the meeting, the North Koreans asked about Washington's policy and whether it would issue a statement that it had no hostile intentions, as the Clinton Administration had. The discussion suggested that North Korea was looking for a concession to get it to the bargaining table, as it usually does. Team Bush is expected to reiterate its willingness to resume negotiations without preconditions.
Washington, too, has a stake in success. The March meeting crippled South Korean leader Kim Dae Jung, and the Bush Administration needs to repair the damage to an important ally and trading partner. The treatment of Kim, as well as harsh rhetoric about China, has worried other friends in the region. Progress with the North would go far toward assuaging doubts in Asian capitals about the Administration.
EASED DEMANDS. A quick resumption of talks would actually play into Washington's hands. The Administration insists on inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those inspections will take place faster if equipment for a promised light-water reactor is delivered to North Korea. That's because under a deal negotiated by the Clinton Administration, Pyongyang agreed to such exams once substantial equipment is in place.
Indeed, the Bush folks already have eased their demands for discussions about conventional forces, acknowledging -- after protests from Seoul -- that South Korea should take the lead on that topic. After all, while nukes and missiles are theoretically a threat to the U.S., conventional forces are a threat only to Seoul. That means that Powell was right -- the talks will pick up where Clinton left off, discussing missiles and nukes.
It will be tough to get a deal that contains verification procedures that satisfy the Bushies. But the North, in its first foray, didn't satisfy Clinton either. That's why he never flew to Pyongyang. The negotiations will be very difficult. The hard-line rhetoric to date proves that. But it doesn't mean that talks won't take place or that they'll fail. My bet is they'll start sooner, rather than later.
Crock covers national security and foreign affairs for BusinessWeek from Washington. Follow his views twice a month, only on BW Online Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
Copyright 2001 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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