EDITORIAL
Talking to North Korea
Published: January 13, 2011
After two years of threats and attacks, North Korea may be pulling back from the brink. Or not. North Korea’s leadership is so erratic — it’s not even clear who is in charge right now — that it is impossible to tell.
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There are a few hopeful signs. On Monday, the North formally invited South Korea to talks on economic ties. On Wednesday, for the first time in seven months, the North used a diplomatic hot line to call the South.
The North’s main patron, China, has also been pushing for a resumption of the six-party talks that the big powers and North Korea’s neighbors say are intended to end the North’s nuclear program. (The North walked out of the last round in 2008.)
North Korea has a long history of making promises, collecting economic rewards and then failing to deliver — or manufacturing crises and demanding more payoffs in return for calming tensions. The United States, South Korea and Japan are understandably reluctant to get fooled again.
But recent events, including the shelling of a South Korean island, have been so alarming that the Obama administration has now decided to nudge the South back to bilateral talks. American officials are also considering their own bilateral dialogue with the North and an eventual return to six-party talks.
These moves are necessary. But there is also a real danger that the North Korean government will misread any opening as weakness and an invitation to act out even more. The only country with any chance of getting through is China, the North’s main supplier of food and fuel. Beijing needs to end its cynical diplomacy-as-usual and use all of its influence to ensure that Pyongyang arrives at the table ready to deal.
Since taking office, President Obama has practiced what aides call “strategic patience” when it comes to the North. He promised engagement, tightened sanctions, strengthened regional alliances and waited for the North to return to serious denuclearization talks.
The North has only gotten more belligerent. It expelled nuclear monitors, conducted a second nuclear test and ginned up production of nuclear fuel. In March, it torpedoed a South Korean navy ship, killing 46 sailors; in November, four South Koreans were killed during the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. Seoul has reacted with extraordinary restraint, but the risk of a wider confrontation grows with each incident.
American officials say that Chinese leaders have recently tried to get North Korea to back away from confrontation. But how much pressure China — which fears a collapse of the North above all else — is prepared to bring is anyone’s guess.
When President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China meet next week in Washington, this must be one of the top items on their agenda. Mr. Obama will have to forcefully argue the case that an erratic neighbor armed with nuclear weapons is anything but a recipe for the stability Beijing so prizes, or for an American military drawdown in the region.
The United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia need to vigilantly enforce sanctions on North Korea and find new ways to increase the pressure. It also makes sense to test the North’s intentions, so long as Washington and its allies go in with their eyes open.
Let’s be clear. Getting the North to give up its nuclear program is a very long shot. But two years of stalemate have only made things more dangerous.
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