Why North Korea Matters to America

In Sino-American relations, high-level stumbles are virtually unavoidable. The terrain is too unfamiliar, the issues too complex, for the sailing to be smooth. Vice President Al Gore found that out the hard way last week. What might have been just another excellent adventure in Asia turned into a succession of nervous-making moments. He bobbled the Chinese campaign financing issue and spilled some bubbly during a tense champagne toast at the official dinner in Beijing. Afterward, the Washington press corps was all over him for the weak performance. Big deal.

The pragmatic Chinese and the worried Koreans were more than happy to host Gore, chills, spills and all. Too bad he got those nasty reviews in the Washington press. I hope he doesn’t feel he should have stayed in bed, because the trip was well worth making. Besides, whoever said Al Gore was Henry Kissinger?

China had a full house of visiting American big shots last week. House Speaker Newt Gingrich followed on Gore’s heels. The Chinese liked the company, even when Gingrich offered his best John Wayne tough act on the human-rights issue. The Chinese were not exactly left shivering in their Mao jackets. They paid him no mind. Asians tend to understand American grandstanding; after all, their politicians are adept at it themselves.

Sino-U.S. relations will sometimes bring out the worst in each side. Remember how Beijing blew it with its adolescent tantrum over Disney’s involvement in a Dalai Lama film? I fearlessly predict that there will be many more such scenes, from both sides.

On Friday, I asked Mike McCurry, the president’s affable press secretary, how much damage control he is having to do on the Gore miscues. On the contrary, he insisted, Gore got a lot accomplished behind the scenes in areas such as the treatment of dissidents, the export of military technology and the opening of markets to U.S. imports. You would expect the loyal McCurry to say that; still, even if it’s only half true, it’s good news.

After China, Gore rolled on to the Korean peninsula. Another fun assignment: The North faces imminent starvation and the South faces a clogged political system. The vice president took the ritual trip up to the demilitarized zone for the usual photo-op with binoculars, eyeing the last vestiges of Stalinism.

Outsiders never get to see the true North Korea, however. In December, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, delivered a secret speech to top officials laying out the country’s desperation. In Washington, officials call it the “stealth famine.” Everyone knows it’s happening, but Pyongyang won’t let anyone in to see for themselves.

President Clinton has been trying hard with North Korea. One of his true foreign policy contributions has been the daring nuclear-power-for-nukes deal with the North. The continued negotiations in New York are described as promising. “Officials from the North actually talked to their counterparts from the South,” said one American with the genuine astonishment of someone who has watched the two sides do nothing more than stare at each other for hours, even days on end.

Even so, the two sides had better start talking a great deal more. The North is threatening to implode, with food needs so staggering that outside aid will have to be massive to be effective. Together, South Korea and Japan have enough food to staunch the famine, but inevitably America will have to get involved if North Korea is not to starve or, in a desperate lunge, invade. Many people could die during the famine, but the regime probably would survive. Mao and Stalin both outlasted their famines.

For all Clinton’s powers of persuasion, I am not sure he can sell the American people on the need for America to bail out the world’s most obnoxious government. I can hear Republicans and others screaming: What has North Korea ever done for us? Now that their failed regime is in a deep hole, why should Uncle Sap ride to the rescue?

Fair points, actually, but I sense an uncharacteristic determination in the Clinton administration to do the right thing. Clinton is smart. If America winds up having to airlift more U.S. troops to the Korean peninsula as the North Korean army pours itself over the border to invade the South in a last-gasp bid for life, people will ask why America didn’t do something sooner.

Clinton’s handicap isn’t just that Congress isn’t controlled by his party. It’s that America doesn’t really care about North Korea. Too bad cameras can’t get into the North to bring home to the American people the daunting dimensions of the enormous horror. If the American people could see what U.S. intelligence hears, the president probably would get the public backing he needs for a massive Western food intervention. CNN, where are you now that the Koreans, indeed the world--indeed Clinton--need you?