Why Clinton Is Fussing Over Koreas' First Date

Like old-fashioned parents, Washington and Beijing both appear a little anxious about allowing the two Korean Kims to court unchaperoned. Then again, any misplaced remark or gesture could have disastrous consequences when South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung travels to Pyongyang on Monday for two days of talks with North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong Il — the first ever meeting between the leaders of two states divided not by a border but by a cease-fire line. President Clinton Thursday used the funeral of former Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi as an opportunity for intense huddling with leaders of both South Korea and Japan over next week's meeting. President Kim's "Sunshine Policy" of rapprochement with the North has at times made South Korea more inclined toward concessions to Pyongyang than its U.S. defenders. Although supportive of President Kim's initiative — and planning to underscore it by easing some U.S. sanctions against North Korea — the Clinton administration wants the South Korean leader to push hard for concessions over Pyongyang's weapons programs before making any of his own.

China last week hosted Kim Jong Il on a rare trip abroad that underscored Beijing's critical role in cajoling the reclusive Pyongyang leadership to open up to the South and to the idea of economic reform. China, which remains North Korea's only significant ally, wants to show the South Koreans — from whom Beijing hopes to attract massive investment — that China, rather than the U.S., is the best guarantor of regional security. "China certainly has a lot to gain by taking the role of regional peace broker," says TIME U.N. correspondent William Dowell. "And, of course, the fact that the major threat from North Korea is weapons-technology exports to countries such as Iran gives China added significance as the only country able to restrain the North Koreans." The biggest beneficiaries of rapprochement, though, would be North Korea, which stands to gain billions of dollars in aid and investment from the South to rebuild its stagnant economy. In return, South Koreans want Pyongyang to allow reunions among the hundreds of thousands of Korean families divided by the cease-fire line.

Even if the progress at next week's summit is mostly symbolic, its importance can't be underestimated. "North Korea's leaders have shut themselves off from the outside world to the point where they're seriously out of touch with what's happening all around them," says Dowell, "and that obviously increases the risks that this heavily armed but economically desperate state could be tempted to do something stupid. Everyone involved in the region wants to do whatever they can to integrate North Korea into a wider community." In other words, anything that gets the Dear Leader out more can't be bad.