SEOUL - The Condoleezza Rice road show was such an exercise in bluff and
bluster that the only clear conclusion in its wake is that nothing she said had
changed anyone's mind on what to do about North Korea's nuclear program.
Moving with the glittery aplomb of a queen between the Foreign Ministry and the
Blue House presidential complex, ambassadors and junior diplomats surrounding
the US secretary of state vied with her Korean hosts for the distinction of
which side was the more
skilled in diplomatic double-talk.
The winner in a close race was affable, unflappable South Korean Foreign
Minister Ban Ki-moon, whose favorite expression, a gentler version of the
thinking of President Roh Moo-hyun, was that all contentious issues were "under
review" - no doubt while "reviewing the situation".
That response seemed to cover just about everything South Korea might do to
fulfill the UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea, ranging from the
dreaded Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) to the special economic and
tourist zones across the line in North Korea.
The whole PSI issue ranks as probably the most sensitive one among Korean
officials, who absolutely do not want to sign on to the idea for fear of
provoking the North Koreans. The whole point of PSI, after all, is to figure
out ways for stopping the shipment of weapons of mass destruction or components
- the latter a category open to wide interpretation when counting all the stuff
that goes into a missile or nuclear warhead.
What could provide a more handy cover for living up to the provision of the
sanctions authorizing the interdiction of such weaponry than PSI? Koreans have
had plenty of opportunities to participate in PSI training exercises, most
recently in waters off Australia, but preferred only to send observers to see
what was going on.
Nothing they have seen so far has convinced them that PSI would serve any other
end than that of escalating tensions, culminating possibly in a bloody incident
in Korean waters of unforeseeable consequences for peace and stability in the
region.
No way, was Rice's comforting message. Like a doctor trying to get a patient to
swallow a bitter pill, she reminded the Koreans that a lot of it was just an
exchange of intelligence among the 70 countries that had already signed on, and
there was nothing in it requiring "constant inspection" of ships.
Why, she could think of plenty of other ways to divine what was moving in and
out of North Korean ports - and the ports where they were offloading their
cargo. How about increased "port security" - or "detection of radioactive
materials?"
Left unanswered, of course, was the question of just who would do what to whom
if a ship were discovered actually to be carrying something truly awful. If
there was "leverage", as Rice put it, there was still "the need to prevent
North Korean trafficking in nuclear materials".
Try as they might to sound tough in their mutual affirmations of the US-Korean
alliance and denunciations of the North Korean nuclear test, Rice's mission
made unmistakably clear the South Koreans and Americans are just not going to
see eye-to-eye on North Korea.
The fact that she did so well the day before in Tokyo, evoking repetitions of
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's well-known desire to act decisively against the
North Koreans, may not have helped her case.
In a great show of "trilateral" amity, Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso showed
up in Seoul for a session with Rice and UN secretary general-designate Ban,
after which they all agreed, yes, they shared common cause against the North
Korean nuclear program, but Ban again, in his smiling, low-key way, managed to
reveal the obstacles to real trilateral accord.
Each country, he said, would have to decide how to respond according to its
"unique" circumstances - a turn of phrase that meant they would all go on
pursuing the same policies as before.
Rice's stopover undoubtedly called for the most delicate give-and-take of her
swing through the region. The Japanese were already on board with the US
hardline policy and China's lack of enthusiasm for any action that might lead
to a clash with North Korea was well known before she got there. With no
alliance to try to preserve, Rice did not have to go through the
"we-have-no-desire-to-dictate" routine that she felt compelled to tell the
Koreans.
How much China will really do, though, is not clear.
A high-level envoy, Tang Jiaxuan, returned from Pyongyang with word that his
visit had "not been in vain", but the message he carried with him from Kim
Jong-il did not seem to vary much from previous North Korean demands.
The word from Pyongyang was that the US had to abandon the financial
"sanctions" it had imposed on banks and financial institutions in order to curb
the flow of counterfeit US$100 "supernotes". This is the same demand North
Korea has been making as a prerequisite for returning to the six-party talks on
its nuclear program.
Oh yes, Kim, according Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest-selling newspaper and
a strong conservative voice and critic of the government's tiresome efforts at
reconciliation with the North, had also expressed his "regret" over the first
test. The report, based on "diplomatic sources" in Beijing, clearly needed
substantiation, but the inference seemed pretty clear. For Kim, the explosion
of a small nuclear device had been a symbolic gesture, a call for attention.
Another inference was also clear: North Korea might do it again, stage a second
nuclear test, if the US does not agree to North Korea's demands to lift
restrictions.
A second test, everyone seems to agree, would ratchet up the stakes - and the
potential penalties. If Rice harbors any fantasies about persuading South
Koreans, or the Chinese, to go along with a serious military response, though,
she and her acolytes, notably Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state
for the region and advance man for her visit, may be severely disillusioned.
Rice, while in Seoul, failed to talk the South Koreans into seriously
considering halting business in the Gaesong economic zone, 40 miles north of
Seoul, where 15 South Korean factories are turning out pots, pans, shoes and
other products, or to get them to halt tours to the Mount Kumkang region just
above the eastern end of the North-South line.
While Rice was winging her way to Beijing, the head of the Uri Party made a
point of trekking up to Gaesong in a show of solidarity with the good work
those companies are doing, hiring about 6,000 North Korean workers whose
payroll went not to them but to their government.
The response on tours to Kumkang came as a slap in the face for Hill, who had
pleaded that tourism to the zone sent money directly into the coffers of the
government, which might then use it for weapons programs. He no doubt was
mindful of the fact that Hyundai Asan, the Hyundai company responsible for
developing both Gaesong and Kumkang, had been the channel through which at
least $500 million was paid to North Korea to get Kim to agree to host Kim
Dae-jung, then president and author of the Sunshine Policy, in June 2000 on the
only inter-Korean summit.
Not unexpectedly, Kim Dae-jung, now more than 80 years old, has been devoting
his remaining energies to defending the policy - and criticizing anything that
smacks of punishing North Korea.
While denouncing the nuclear test, he noted in a recent interview that North
Korea "has already faced a lot of economic sanctions" and "giving more
sanctions can only be met with strong responses" and "create new problems".
China, he predicted, would "step up and try to help out" - that is, help North
Korea, not the US, in its pursuit of a real deal on kicking North Korea out of
the exclusive club of nuclear powers.
Kim Dae-jung's words as an elder statesman no longer resonate as they once did,
but his legacy lives on - in the polite but firm resistance Rice encountered in
her quest for rapport with an ally that clearly has other views about the
nature of the alliance.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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