Not on the Same Page

To

understand why South Korea seems less concerned about its belligerent neighbor North Korea having nuclear weapons and more concerned about its hegemonic U.S. ally, visit the S bar in Seoul's chic Apgujeong quarter. It's only 40 kilometers to the dmz—well within artillery range—but you can't get much farther from the Stalinist North than this hip watering hole, where college student Lee Sung Yeon, 20, sips expensive cocktails with her girlfriends and talks about politics. Lee didn't attend recent anti-American protests, during which some of the demonstrators called for the withdrawal of 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in her country. "Too extreme," she says. But she likes the idea of a nuclear-armed North Korea. That's because, she argues, her country will inherit the weapons when North and South finally reunify. "Having nukes means you have power," she says.

The blithely naive sentiments of youth, perhaps, but they help to explain why the South Korean government seems to be running interference for Pyongyang these days. Since admitting in October that it has a covert nuclear-weapons program, North Korea has consistently upped the pressure to force the U.S. into talks, restarting a mothballed reactor that could produce weapons material in violation of international accords and evicting International Atomic Energy Agency monitors. The latest provocation came last week, when the North announced it was pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Magna Carta of international efforts to stem the spread of atomic weapons. The message: unless the U.S. resumes the flow of oil and food aid, the North is prepared not only to build nuclear bombs but also possibly to ship them to other rogue states as well.

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In spite of the North's increasingly menacing brinkmanship, South Korea advocates a diplomatic strategy markedly different from that of the U.S. While the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is inclined to force North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il to heel by isolating him and imposing harsh sanctions, Seoul is pushing assistance and engagement—and it wants the U.S. to negotiate with Kim before he goes too far. Youthful South Koreans like Lee favor this approach. "They are rejecting the Cold War mentality and deliberately setting out on a new course," says Kim Kyung Won, former South Korean ambassador to the U.S.

In fact, South Korea's President-elect, Roh Moo Hyun, has made it clear the country will continue to pursue peaceful reunification with the North—another round of ongoing reunification talks are scheduled to be held this week. Simply put, the South does not perceive Kim Jong Il to be as dangerous or unreasonable as the U.S. does. In fact, many South Koreans view America as the aggressor—Bush's inclusion of North Korea in his "axis of evil" was tantamount to telling Kim Jong Il his days as dictator, like Saddam Hussein's, are numbered. That echoes North Korea's oft-repeated line that America, despite assurances to the contrary from U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, plans to invade and so the North must develop nuclear weapons as a matter of self-defense.

Behind South Korea's newfound assertiveness is a younger generation of Koreans who have never experienced war. Affluent, confident and scornful of the anti-communist ideology from decades past, they feel a sentimental bond with Koreans on the other side of the barbed wire. Of course, there are plenty of South Koreans who still see the North as a threat. "We have gone too far," says Lee Dong Kwan, associate editor of the daily Dong-A Ilbo. And on Saturday, some 30,000 demonstrators rallied in Seoul to show support for the U.S. military presence in the South.

Nevertheless, it appears South Korea may have softened the U.S. stance somewhat. Unlike its nearly unilateral approach to Iraq, the Bush administration has been actively consulting with North Korea's neighbors during the nuclear crisis. Bush spent 15 minutes on the phone last week with Chinese Presi-dent Jiang Zemin. (China has urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear-wea-pons program.) Over the weekend, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs James Kelly was scheduled to meet with representatives of South Korea, China, Japan and other countries. More tellingly, the U.S. last week even opened a channel of communication with the North. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador with experience negotiating with Pyongyang on tricky issues, held unofficial talks with two North Korean envoys in the U.S.

But South Korean officials fear North Korea's withdrawal from the nuclear treaty will harden attitudes in Washington. "It won't [encourage] the American side to resume the dialogue," says a foreign-policy adviser to President-elect Roh. The North may even set an ominous precedent, demonstrating to other marginalized states like Iran that they can seek atomic weapons without much risk. "If you get this one wrong, it's hard to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again," says Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington. In this dangerous game of bluff and counterbluff, North Korea has raised the stakes again.