John L. Perry
Friday, June 8, 2001

This time there were no surprises. The Bush-Cheney administration has been telegraphing this development for more than a month.

Then, Wednesday night Bush made it official, issuing a statement directing his national-security team to "undertake serious discussions with North Korea on a broad agenda."

The big question mark hanging over this new turn of events is whether it signals that Bush is prepared to give up on his missile-defense plan, which has less assurance of approval by Congress now that the Democrats control the Senate.

If Bush gets North Korea to forego its missile program, so the buzz goes in Washington now, there should be less justification for a defensive shield tailored to ward off North Korean missiles.

Mission Unsuccessful

This is being watched with great interest in the capitals of Europe, from which Secretary of State Colin Powell has just returned from a tour to reassure opponents of the American missile shield. There was little evidence he was successful.

The latest Korean development is also certain to play a role in Bush's summit June 16 with Russian President Valdimir Putin, who, like the communist rulers in Beijing, strongly opposes a defensive shield protecting the American mainland from nuclear warheads launched by the likes of North Korea.

Democrats in Congress and the liberal major press were delighted with the new development. Republicans and other conservatives were quiet, at least initially.

Reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan's famed admonition in dealing with the old Soviet Union – "trust, but verify" – Bush said his agenda called for "verifiable constraints on North Korea's missile programs and a ban on its missile exports, and a less-threatening conventional military posture."

A deployment of 37,000 United States troops are about all that stand along the narrow demarcation zone between democratic South Korea and hundreds of thousands of battle-ready troops in communist North Korea.

Bush Insists on Actions

The president served notice on North Korea, which maintains one of the world's largest standing armies, that he expects it to "demonstrate the seriousness of its desire for improved relations" by taking "appropriate actions."

If it does, Bush said, the United States "will expand our efforts to help the North Korean people, ease sanctions and take other political steps."

His announcement was greeted with immediate applause from communist China, Australia, Japan and South Korea, as reported by Reuters news service in the South China Morning Post:

"We regard the improvement of U.S.-Korea relations as an important accelerating factor," said China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi.

"We hope they will continue the process of dialogue and play a positive role in the peace process on the peninsula."

'The Only Policy'

Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, said, "It is the only policy that can conceivably lead to a constructive outcome."

A spokesman for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi confirmed that Bush's statement was in accord with recent talks in Hawaii with U.S. officials that Tokyo and Seoul have been coordinating.

South Korean officials expressed approval and obvious relief, urging North Korea to "take a very sincere attitude" toward the talks proposed by Bush.

None of this came as a surprise to those who have been following Asian political developments closely. Bush's move to resume Washington's negotiations with Pyongyang had been expected for weeks.

As reported by the New York Times on May 10, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage on a visit to Seoul alerted President Kim that he could expect Bush to reopen talks with the North "in the near future" after his national-security team completed "in a few weeks" its three-months review of U.S. policy toward North Korea.

An 'Unexpected' Promise

That was preceded six days earlier, as the Times confirmed, by an announcement from the South Korean president that he had just received a "quite unexpected" pledge from North Korean President Kim Jong Il to continue his moratorium on missile testing until 2003.

In its waning days in office, the Clinton-Gore administration had been trying to cut a deal with North Korea to stop its abandon program in return for U.S. financial aid to fuel the nuclear power plants it wants to build.

There had been an expectation in Seoul that the new president would pursue those same negotiations.

Even before his March visit to the White House, the president of South Korea had staked his political future on fostering closer ties with the North, which in turn were dependent on Washington and Pyongyang reaching some kind of an agreement.

Kim Dae Jung was not only taken by surprise by Bush's abrupt scotching of any immediate further talks between Washington and Pyongyang, but was also keenly embarrassed.

Powell Caught Off Guard

So was Powell, newly confirmed as secretary of state. Only hours before Bush put talks on hold, Powell had confidently advised the press that the Bush-Cheney administration was going to "pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off" in dealing with North Korea.

On the heels of that, Bush dropped his surprise in Kim's lap in the Oval Office in front of television news cameras, saying he was not certain whether the North Koreans were keeping agreements they had already made with Clinton.

Powell then had to scurry to retract his words to the press. Adding to his embarrassment, another top Bush-Cheney official told the press then that North Korea was a "failed regime" and "you cannot rely on Kim Jong Il's word."

Now, this apparent reverting back to the previous Clinton policy of engagement with North Korea is being reported, by the Washington Post, for example, as a vindication of Powell.

The Post was quoting a Democratic congressional aide as saying of the Bush-Cheney administration, "They're more or less right back where they started, with a minor tweak in the language."

Right Down Biden's Alley

The New York Times was carrying gleeful quotes from Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., a strong critic of Bush's plans for a domestic missile-defense system to protect American cities from a nuclear strike from a "rogue nation," which is how North Korea is listed by the State Department.

Biden said how pleased he was that the "Powell school" was beginning to prevail, the Post said, adding that he had been assured by Powell that the new "dialogue with North Korea would start promptly and without preconditions."

The Post said Biden "complimented the administration for deciding to proceed with a comprehensive engagement strategy."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Missile Defense
North Korea
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