No crisis in North Korea – yet

Under the "Sunshine" policies of outgoing President Kim Dae Jung, South Korea insists strictly on a diplomatic solution, rejecting even sanctions on the North. Seoul diplomats returned from a meeting in Pyongyang Wednesday, and President Kim previewed what is expected to be his position at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Mexico this weekend, when he told reporters that dialogue is the only option and that sanctions would allow "a nuclear response" from the North.

Senior Bush officials say the US is "willing to wait" until after South Korea's elections, scheduled for December, to work with a new government in the South that is expected to take a tougher line on the North.

In Pyongyang this week, the North refused to reaffirm in writing the terms of two landmark denuclearization treaties it signed with Seoul in 1992. Those two treaties formed the basis of the Agreed Framework's ban on nuclear activity, many scholars say. The Agreed Framework itself came about when North Korea threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime in 1993, after international inspectors found evidence of weapons-grade plutonium in a reactor.

Japan, for its part, plans to conduct talks on normalization with North Korea Oct. 29 at the Japanese Embassy in Malaysia. Tokyo regards the secret nuclear program as a violation of the "Pyongyang Declaration" Japanese President Junichiro Koizumi signed with the North's Kim last month. Japan will tell the North that it will give no aid or compensation until its nuclear program is "verifiably scrapped," a Japanese foreign ministry official says. Japanese funding is considered a chief future lever with the North's leader.

Some Korea watchers say Kim is genuinely trying to gain Washington's attention – but his tactics are feeding those who least want talks. "The big challenge is that there may be an unbridgeable gap between where the DPRK [North Korea] is, and where the US government is," says a North Asia expert in Seoul. "The allies are watching and hoping the gap either isn't there, or will just go away."

In recent months, Kim has made several diplomatic mistakes unusual for the North, whose tactics are grudgingly admired by Western strategists. A plan to start a free-trade zone in North Korea was scuttled when China arrested the man pegged by Pyongyang to start the project. Then last month, Kim evidently misjudged public outcry in Japan after apologizing for the North's abduction of 12 citizens (Story page 7).

It may be China, in fact, that has the most capacity to pressure the North. China provides food and fuel to the North – directly and indirectly, through a long and porous border – allowing for a hearty export of cash and goods to its neighbor. It does not want a nuclear North Korea, nor does it want a rapid collapse of the North that could conceivably bring US support troops to its border. China is especially adamant that Japan not be allowed nuclear weapons, should the North remain stubborn.

"I think after US-China talks, China will deliver a message to Kim," says one US scholar with ties to the US State Department. "That may be the most powerful agreement that comes out of [Chinese President] Jiang's trip to Texas," a summit between the two leaders scheduled for Friday at Bush's ranch.

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