(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Feb. 16)

Patience, confidence

North Korea and China had a busy week of high-level consultations on the
resumption of the long-stalled six-way denuclearization talks.


The North's chief
nuclear negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan returned to Pyongyang
Saturday after a five-day visit to Beijing during which he held a series of talks
with China's top officials. Kim's trip immediately followed a visit to Pyongyang
by the head of the Chinese Communist Party's external affairs department.
Kim said he had "in-depth discussions" with Wu Dawei, China's chief delegate to
the six-party talks. Their conversation covered the lifting of U.N. sanctions on
North Korea, signing a peace treaty with the United States to officially end the
Korean War and bilateral matters. In an unusual move, spokespersons for North
Korean and Chinese Foreign Ministries announced the subjects of discussion in
Beijing.
Through the exchange of visits, China exhibited to the world its sincere efforts
to bring North Korea back to the six-party talks. Pyongyang, on the other hand,
demonstrated its solid ties with Beijing that mandated strategic consultation
about the multilateral talks rather than any differences between them. Together,
the two countries were pressing the United States and other parties to be more
accommodating of the North Korean position regarding the economic and political
rewards for its denuclearization.
As we look into the current circumstances, North Korea's nuclear armament poses
no challenge to China other than creating a destabilizing factor in Northeast
Asia, as it would encourage Japan, South Korea and even Taiwan to go nuclear. As
it is rising to a dominant world power with rapid economic growth in tandem with
significant military buildup, China must be finding new strategic values in North
Korea. Beijing leaders should now have less enthusiasm to force Kim Jong-il to
abandon his nuclear ambitions than in 2003 when they initiated the six-way talks.

The Obama administration in Washington says it regards China as a most important
partner in shaping the 21st century, but that partnership is being shaken these
days by the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan and its campaign on the economic front to
have Beijing raise the value of the yuan, among other irritants. Washington's
current push for a ballistic missile defense system in this region and even its
"strategic flexibility" policy involving the U.S. forces in Korea could further
annoy the Chinese.
By now, no party of the six-way talks has any great illusions about the
on-and-off conference. Since its start, there have been two comprehensive
agreements which were quickly neglected, North Korea conducted nuclear tests
twice and the United Nations issued two resolutions condemning Pyongyang with
tough sanctions that the North somehow bore. In the summer of 2008, North Korea
ceremoniously destroyed the cooling tower of the main Yongbyon reactor, but it
later reprocessed spent nuclear fuel to get more plutonium and announced the
development of a uranium enrichment program.
If there is an impetus for North Korea to seek a nuclear deal, it is its dire
economic needs - Kim Jong-il's promise to his people to make a strong, prosperous
state that can feed them with steamed rice and beef stew by 2012, the centennial
of his deceased father Kim Il-sung. And the only party that is capable and
willing to help the Northerners is their brothers in the South. Pyongyang's
recent approaches toward Seoul for expanded economic cooperation seem to indicate
they have realized this fact. President Lee Myung-bak's "grand bargain" proposal
as well as Washington's "comprehensive package" offer can have productive results
when the two governments deal with the North with patience and confidence.
(END)

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