Clinton Opens the Door to Commie Kimchee

North Korea can come in from the cold, but Pyongyang will have to check its missiles at the door. President Clinton on Friday lifted a series of economic sanctions against North Korea that had been in place since 1953, in response to Pyongyang’s undertaking to refrain from missile testing. The announcement will allow trade in consumer goods between the U.S. and North Korea and investment by American firms in the country’s torpid economy. But don’t expect to see your local deli carrying North Korean kimchee any time soon – prospects for trade may be somewhat limited by the fact that the famine-ridden communist country’s most important export in the post-Cold War years may well have been the very missiles it has now undertaken to curb.

The easing of sanctions is symbolically important in continuing Washington’s policy of using economic inducements to coax better behavior out of the rogue state. Congressional critics might add that it could also be taken as a vindication of North Korea’s policy of extorting economic concessions out of the West by behaving badly and threatening worse. Five years ago, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a massive energy assistance program from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan. When those countries were slow to deliver on promised energy aid, Pyongyang feinted toward rebuilding its nuclear program before allowing inspection of its facilities in exchange for promises of aid. Recent preparations for long-range missile tests were also widely interpreted as an attempt to press for more economic assistance amid a deepening food crisis. "Washington and its allies in the region believe it’s worth dangling economic carrots rather than facing down an unpredictable state in a potentially catastrophic confrontation," says TIME U.N. correspondent William Dowell. "If we leave North Korea starving but isolated and it tries in desperation to break out through launching aggression, the only option would be to fight them — and that would cost the U.S. and its allies in the region far, far more in human and economic terms than the present policy does."