North Korea's President Kim Dae-jung's Washington summit meeting with US President George W. Bush was not the unqualified success he had hoped for but did accomplish his primary objectives.
As expected and desired, Bush endorsed President Kim's Sunshine Policy of reconciliation and cooperation with North Korea, praising Kim for his "vision" in beginning a dialogue with Pyongyang.
Bush also reaffirmed the US-South Korean security relationship and the U.S.-South Korea-Japan trilateral dialogue process aimed at coordinating policies toward North Korea.
Bush also referred to Kim as a "realist;" a comment which should help the South Korean leader deal with increasing domestic skepticism, not about engagement per se but about Kim's approach to the North, which critics say offers too much and receives too little in return.
To Kim's discomfort, Bush publicly registered his own skepticism toward North Korea, especially when it comes to US negotiations with the North on missiles and other arms control issues.
While Korean officials and sympathetic media outlets tried to stress the positive aspects of the meeting, most US pundits and wire services stressed Bush's skepticism and his focus on North Korea as a "threat." Of course, the latter is hardly news.
The Clinton administration, even as it promoted increased dialogue with Pyongyang, continued to view North Korea as a "state of concern" -- their politically-correct way of saying "rogue state" -- and the latest South Korean Defense White Paper also (correctly) identifies North Korea as the South's primary threat.
This is why the two presidents, as all their predecessors, stressed the need for the continued strong military deterrence provided by the US-South Korean alliance and US military force presence in South Korea.
While Bush was hardly enthusiastic about future US-North Korean relations, he did not throw quite as much cold water on the process as press coverage would indicate.
Bush said that "we're looking forward to at some point in the future having a dialogue with the North Koreans," even while noting that "any negotiations would require complete verification of the terms." In addition, his statement noting that "I do have some skepticism about the leader of North Korea," concluded with "but that's not going to preclude us from trying to achieve the common objective."
As Secretary of State Colin Powell said after the summit, "we'll be formulating our policies and in due course decide at what pace and when we engage, but there is no hurry."
Clearly, President Bush is not going to be rushing off to Pyongyang any time soon, as his predecessor seemed eager to do. But the negotiation process is not going to be abandoned either. One can hardly fault a new administration for wanting to get its new team in place and its overall policy review completed before proceeding. In fact, the less than smooth handling of Kim's visit underscores the necessity of such an approach.
Mixed signals were sent and efforts by "senior administration officials" to clarify apparent inconsistencies revealed that the new team needs both more practice and more reinforcements. While being the first Asian leader to visit scores some diplomatic points, the downsides of an early visit were also clearly apparent.
All things considered, however, president Kim should have been generally pleased, even if not overjoyed, with the visit.
Nonetheless, Washington must be aware that, rightly or wrongly, its hardline approach toward missile talks with North Korea feeds South Korean suspicions that the US wants North Korea as a threat in order to justify its national missile defense (NMD) program.
But, such suspicions are growing and help feed the larger perception that the US is somehow against the North-South peace process as well.
A failure by Washington to deal effectively with the misperception could have a long-term negative impact on US-South Korean relations. One can only hope that North Korea understands the requirement for any new administration to conduct a policy review before marching forward.
Ralph Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based non-profit research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
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