Over the last 16 months, Kim has toyed with international inspectors-and kept them guessing about whether he actually has developed the atom bomb. That prospect terrifies South Korea. A de-stabilized Korean peninsula deeply troubles Asian neighbors and the West, who also fear that Pyongyang might sell nuclear weapons to renegade states like Iran. How to meet Kim’s defiance? Cold-warrior columnists William Safire and George Will suggest I preparing for war. The Clinton administration decided to press for U.N. sanctions.
That push hasn’t been easy. America’s call for sanctions, says North Korea, will “mean outright war.” Seoul hasn’t flinched. But Tokyo, with a weak minority government, isn’t eager to roil its fractious, politically connected Korean community by choking off funds sent home. Beijing spent last week publicly belittling the idea of an embargo, but privately may have begun to pressure the North to make concessions. Push may yet come to shove. Late in the week, the United States, South Korea and Japan agreed to take a series of punitive steps against the North that would gradually increase in severity. No details were specified. And this week, before the U.N. Security Council, Washington will likely call for an international conference on North Korea, to please Russia, as well as a cutoff of Japanese remittances, an arms embargo and trade sanctions. The biggest punch comes with phase two: severing oil exports. In a quieter vein, former president Jimmy Carter will make an unofficial visit to Kim to seek a face-saving way out of the crisis.
Washington is trying to rope Pyongyang back into the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) community. Ironically, the administration thought it had already accomplished that goal only months ago. In January U.S. and North Korean negotiators agreed to defer the question of a possible 1989 diversion of weapons-grade plutonium and to concentrate instead on monitoring Pyongyang’s current and future nuclear program. But someone apparently forgot to tell the inspectors. When they showed up in late May and wanted to test already-spent fuel rods, North Korea balked at what it assumed was off-limits. The inspectors left-. they claim Pyongyang has no right to “pick and choose” which safeguards can be enforced. The North then quickly unloaded the reactor at Yongbyon -destroying traces of its past activity and precipitating the current showdown.
Why is the bomb so important to Kim, now 82? Perhaps because he regards it as the ultimate guarantor of juche, the only way to preserve his creation-the North Korean state-after he dies. Had there not been the latest misunderstanding with the West, he might have been able to hold on to a small nuclear arsenal and receive diplomatic recognition and foreign investment. The deal he cut with the Americans seemed a prelude to a novel U.S. approach to NPT, up for review in 1995: states that, had snubbed the treaty-India, Pakistan, Israel–would get to keep their bombs, but would agree not to produce any new fissile material. They would still have to open up their nuclear programs to inspection.
Kim may have traded away that option. “He has to be tough,” says a State Department official. “But he can’t be incredibly stupid. In the past be has shown the ability to veer back from the edge at just the right time.” juche has made Kim bold enough to confront the world. The real test is whether it has made him feel strong enough to compromise.
