Koreas: Trouble on the peninsula

By Mike Chinoy
Senior Asia Correspondent

(CNN) -- A year after the historic summit meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung raised hopes for an end to the last unresolved conflict of the Cold War, the peace process on the Korean peninsula is in trouble.

The resumption of low-level contacts between American and North Korean diplomats this week has avoided a total breakdown.

But with the rapprochement between North and South at a virtual standstill, and Washington and Pyongyang still far apart on fundamental issues, the prospects for meaningful progress remain slim.

The key reason, in the view of many analysts, is that the administration of President George W. Bush, skeptical of what it saw as the Clinton administration’s weakness towards Pyongyang, and deeply suspicious of North Korea’s reclusive regime, has sought to change the rules of the diplomatic game.

North's nuclear brinkmanship

The new U.S. approach, outlined in a recent broadly-worded but imprecise presidential statement, called for more intrusive inspections of the North’s nuclear facilities, more rigorous verification of any future deal to curb Pyongyang’s missile program, and reducing the huge North Korean conventional forces along the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

“These are all the right issues,” said Robert Manning of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Foreign Relations. “But it is not clear exactly what the Bush administration wants North Korea to do. And it is even less clear what the U.S. is prepared to put on the table in return.”

What does seem clear is that the bargain the Clinton administration offered Pyongyang -- a freeze on the production, deployment, testing, and sale of North Korean ballistic missiles in return for the effective normalization of U.S.-North Korea relations, is no longer on the table.

“Instead, the U.S. is putting the issue of verification of a missile deal on the table, while not offering anything in return,” said Lee Sigal, an arms proliferation specialist at the Social Science Research Council in New York.

More broadly, it appears that the American pledge to end the “state of enmity" between the countries, made in a joint declaration with North Korea’s number two leader, Vice Marshal Cho Myong Rok when he visited Washington last October, is no longer Bush administration policy.

“The North Koreans were hoping to trade their missiles for an end of enmity,” said Sigal. “Now, the U.S. is moving the goalposts.”

The politics of hardship

The tougher American line comes at a time of renewed economic hardship for North Korea. A drought affecting the entire peninsula has added to the acute food shortages and deprivation facing North Korea’s long-suffering population.

“Food shortages and the breakdown in health, water, and sanitation services are threatening the lives of millions of people, particularly the most vulnerable - children, pregnant women and the elderly,” the international relief organization Caritas reported in a recent appeal for more emergency food aid.

The World Food Program says that this year, North Korea will produce barely half of what its people need to survive. Some analysts believe this may force Pyongyang to negotiate on American terms.

“North Korea has become a really aid-dependent country,” noted Robert Manning. "That constrains their behavior. If they do provocative things, like firing off missiles, they’re probably going to lose some of the aid they get. And they’re aware of this.”

Yet the North Koreans are also proud, stubborn, and adept at brinkmanship.

While resuming missile tests may be an extreme option, some observers predict that Pyongyang will step up efforts to sell missiles abroad, continue to put North-South dialogue on hold, and, possibly, walk away from dialogue with the U.S. in an effort to force the Bush administration to moderate its position -- a recipe for continued tension on the divided peninsula.