DATE=02/28/01

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=U-S / SOUTH KOREA/ NORTH KOREA

NUMBER=5-49061

BYLINE=STEPHANIE MANN

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: When South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung visits the White House next week (March 7), he is expected to caution President Bush against turning up the pressure on North Korea. As correspondent Stephanie Mann reports, many observers believe Washington's strategy may soon diverge from South Korea's policy.

TEXT: The United States and South Korea share the basic goal of peace on the Korean peninsula and until now have generally agreed on their strategies to work toward that goal. The Clinton administration supported President Kim Dae-Jung's so-called "Sunshine" policy of open engagement with North Korea, aimed at easing tensions and expanding North-South Korean cooperation.

It also conducted its own bil-lateral negotiations with Pyongyang, with the goal of establishing diplomatic relations with the communist and formerly reclusive government.

Following last year's historic summit of the North and South Korean presidents, the two sides have held three rounds of highly structured family reunions, have begun work to reconnect railroad links, and are cooperating on flood control efforts. But advisors to the new U-S President are reported to believe the "Sunshine" approach has brought significant economic benefits to North Korea without reciprocal benefits for South Korea, the United States or regional security.

Professor Samuel Kim, at Columbia University's Center for Korean Research (in New York), says the Bush administration may demand a more strict interpretation of reciprocity than Kim Dae-Jung's administration expects.

/// KIM ACT ONE ///

According to the Bush administration, what North Korea has done up to this point is all symbolic gestures of change and reform without showing any concrete action. The Kim Dae-Jung administration looks at this in a longer term perspective. Change is coming but not as fast as the U-S government would like to see.

/// END ACT ///

Another Korea specialist, William Taylor of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (in Washington) says the Bush administration wants Pyongyang to show it is genuinely working to ease tensions.

/// TAYLOR ACT ONE ///

And the message would be, "Unless you start to move in more important ways than North-South family reunions and Red Cross talks and receiving massive amounts of South Korean investment in North Korea, unless you move to things that are more important in the security realm - like confidence building measures across the demilitarized zone, such as arms reductions negotiations that are verifiable, such as full compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections - a lot of the largesse, the good things that have happened to you, are not going to continue."

/// END ACT ///

Professor Taylor says North Korea has been making progress - he points to its new diplomatic relations with several western countries, its compliance with a 1994 agreement to shut down its nuclear power plants and nuclear reprocessing facility, and its moratorium on long range missile tests. And Professor Taylor says the Bush administration should heed the South Korean government's request to stay the course and not increase pressure on Pyongyang.

/// BEGIN OPT ///

Samuel Kim notes that President Kim himself is under a lot of pressure in Seoul because of domestic economic troubles and the belief among many South Koreans that their government has given too much aid to the North in return for too little. Professor Kim says a hardline approach by the United States would make it harder for President Kim to boost support for his Sunshine policy.

/// KIM ACT TWO ///

Kim Dae Jung is very anxious to project the notion that inter-Korean cooperation and reconciliation would not go too far without a parallel improvement in bilateral relations between the U-S and North Korea, and (between) Japan and North Korea. That's another way of saying that South Korea alone cannot help substantially in the rebuilding of North Korean infrastructure. And the problem here is that the United States and Japan are not likely to move too fast and too far without some concrete concession from North Korea on security related matters.

/// END ACT ///

William Taylor says North Korea can take some specific steps to ease the political pressure on South Korea's president. For example, he says the North could start complying fully with inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, allowing greater access to areas suspected of nuclear activity. In addition, Professor Taylor says North Korea could stop delaying the cross-border railroad project.

/// TAYLOR ACT TWO ///

North Korea agreed a couple of months ago to cooperate with South Korea to rebuild a North-South Korean rail link that was severed 50 years ago during the Korean War and to build a major highway between North and South Korea, side by side with the rail link. And they agreed to begin removing landmines in the area where the railway and the road would go through. Well, the South Koreans have done everything they said they would do. They've already removed the landmines. The North Koreans have been dragging their feet.

/// END ACT ///

Professor Kim says North Korea would earn even more goodwill in the South if it would return some of the hundreds of people it has kidnapped from South Korea over the years. He notes South Korea has returned more than 80 North Korean political prisoners or spies, but the North has not reciprocated.

/// END OPT ///

For its part, North Korea has criticized what it fears may be a tougher U-S stance toward Pyongyang. The North says it cannot maintain its moratorium on missile testing forever, hinting it may resume the tests, last conducted in August, 1998. In 1999, North Korea agreed to the moratorium as long as talks toward a comprehensive missile agreement continued. Those talks broke down at the end of the Clinton administration, when the United States would not agree to Pyongyang's demand for payment in exchange for an end to North Korean missile exports.

Korea experts say the Bush administration is even less likely to agree to such a demand.

But Samuel Kim says President Bush's policy toward the Korean peninsula has not yet solidified because he does not have all his people in place, and they will want to review the current policy before making definite decisions. Therefore, Professor Kim says the White House meeting between President Bush and President Kim Dae-Jung is likely to yield a general statement about common goals for peace on the Korean peninsula, but with no specifics on strategy. (Signed)

NEB/SMN/FC