With Summit, 2 Kims Score Points Against Critics

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung was greeted by cheering crowds and soaring balloons when he returned home Thursday bearing a major agreement with North Korea. But even before his plane landed, his countrymen were adding up the summit score.

The winners, most analysts here suggested, include Kim and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Il, whose new stature as peacemakers gave each fresh ammunition against domestic critics; China, which racks up strategic and economic gains from a stable Korean peninsula; and the people of Northeast Asia, for whom the threat of war diminished with every toast the two leaders traded in Pyongyang, the North’s capital.

The losers include Kim Dae Jung’s conservative opposition in the South and hard-liners from Pyongyang to the Potomac, who will have more difficulty arguing that engaging North Korea will never work, analysts said.

Extraordinary footage continued to pour out of Pyongyang on the final day of the three-day summit, showing the two leaders clasping hands as top officials from both countries sang the unification song that has become an instant anthem for both Koreas.

After surprising observers Tuesday by showing up at the airport to greet the Southern president, Kim Jong Il accompanied his guest to the airport Thursday and sent him off with a Russian-style bearhug.

“The Korean people like macho actions and breakthroughs,” said Choi Jang Jip, a professor of politics at Korea University. But to translate the summit rhetoric into reality, he said, “many different levels of society must change: attitudes, values, anti-Communist policies, laws--including the [South’s] National Security Law--education.”

In an eloquent speech upon his return to Seoul, Kim Dae Jung reminded his giddy nation that the reunification envisioned by the summit would take time and great patience to achieve.

He repeated his long-standing maxim that the two Koreas must focus on producing quick and tangible gains in areas about which they can agree, then use the trust this engenders to tackle more contentious issues.

“I have returned with the full conviction that we can, if we unite our will, reconcile. We can cooperate. And we can realize reunification,” Kim said. The Information Age demands that the Koreas move fast or be left in the global dust, he said. “This is no time to waste fighting and hating,” he said.

Kim revealed that the two leaders had discussed the thorniest issues between their nations: for the South, North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs; for the North, the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea and the virulently anti-Communist National Security Law.

The agreement signed Wednesday night by the leaders committed the two Koreas to work toward reunification, allow separated families to exchange visits, repatriate former North Korean spies now in the South, and embark on a full agenda of economic cooperation and a broad spectrum of exchanges. It did not address military issues.

As Kim drove from the airport through Seoul, crowds lined the streets near City Hall waving the nation’s flags and congratulatory placards, a sign that South Koreans would not be outdone by the legions of North Koreans who had come out to welcome Kim Dae Jung.

“Celebration! See You Again! We love you Kim Jong Il, Kim Dae Jung,” said one homemade sign. It referred to Kim Jong Il’s promise to reciprocate with a visit to Seoul, a development that seemed unimaginable four days ago.

The Korean stock market was unimpressed and fell Thursday by 5.9%.

Kim Dae Jung’s government announced Thursday that it was still hashing out with North Korea steps to prevent military clashes. The moves include establishing a hotline between the two militaries, ending a long-standing propaganda war, and repudiating sabotage and destabilization attempts.

Both Kims have staked much political capital on the success of rapprochement, and each faces political dangers if it fails, analysts said.

The summit helps deflect the South Korean public’s attention from recent government scandals, resurgent divisions between domestic regions and economic restructuring woes. It also helps deflect North Koreans’ attention from hunger, a failed economy and--among those with access to information about the outside world--a sense that other nations have surpassed them.

“If they can’t deliver, all the domestic [issues] start coming back,” said Hahm Chaibong, a professor of international relations at Yonsei University. “They really have to be careful how they implement and sell this.”

Pyongyang, for example, may feel the need for contortions in its official propaganda to explain its dramatic shift in policy toward South Korea, a nation whose legitimacy it has always rejected.

“One of the basic pillars supporting the North Korean government is its antagonistic attitude toward South Korea and the U.S.,” said Park Jai Chang, a professor at Sook Myong Women’s University. “How do you make them understand such a change?”

Managing public opinion is much easier in totalitarian North Korea than in the South, with the latter’s irrepressible media and strong conservative opposition.

Kim Jong Il has already taken the leap by mobilizing 600,000 people on the streets of Pyongyang to cheer Kim Dae Jung, said Kwak Tae Hwan, president of the Korea Institute for National Unification.

“The citizens of Pyongyang are the most important element--the people in the countryside just follow the leader. There is no problem,” Kwak said. “In South Korea, yes, we have a problem. We have lots of problems ahead of us.”

North Korea is gambling that entente will bring direct and tangible benefits--such as food and money--that will help the government maintain its legitimacy in the short term despite any ideological losses, said Korea University’s Choi.

But in the long run, the Northern regime will face the same threats from technology, information and globalization seen by totalitarian governments elsewhere in the world. Kim Dae Jung’s strategy is to help Pyongyang with aid and development, tap its cheap labor and build goodwill and infrastructure that are also in South Korea’s interest.

Some see this as a way to lure the North out of its isolation, reassuring Kim Jong Il that his regime is secure and unchallenged.

“Everyone has to keep up the pretense that nothing will happen to the North Korean regime, [that] you can open up and keep your power [and] we’ll help you make deals with the [International Monetary Fund] and World Bank,” said Yonsei’s Hahm. “But ultimately, we hope it does undermine them. It’s the Trojan horse.”

Others prefer to call this the “poisoned carrot” strategy and say it is a big mistake. But a U.S. official recently remarked: “ ‘Poisoned carrot’ sounds deceptive. The North is too smart to be deceived, and it is not our goal to deceive them. Rather, we are suggesting a path that is in the mutual interest of all parties involved, including North Korea.”

This approach, which is articulated by Kim Dae Jung and endorsed by the Clinton administration, involves offering the North incentives to join the global market economy and helping it reap the benefits.

The overarching promise from Kim Dae Jung is that his nation will not seek to destabilize or absorb its poorer neighbor.

Analysts said China, which benefits from the status quo--a divided Korean peninsula--is a big beneficiary of Wednesday’s agreement. Some believe that Beijing was also an architect, discussing summit terms and strategy during Kim Jong Il’s visit to China late last month.

China would be hurt most if deteriorating conditions in North Korea pushed more refugees across its borders, requiring costly subsidies to prop up its Communist ally. But analysts say China does not want a unified Korea that brings U.S. troops to its border.

Pyongyang has previously thrived on creating conflict. But Kwak, of the unification institute, argues that the Northern leader is unlikely now to reverse course and ratchet up military tensions.

At the final luncheon between the leaders, Kim Jong Il told a Southern delegate that he had ordered his military to refrain from criticizing the South or showing force, the South’s culture minister, Park Jie Won, said Thursday. Kim also ordered the military not to hold any ceremonies to mark the June 25 anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

Said Kwak: “I don’t think Kim Jong Il has any intention of provoking a military conflict. If he does, he’s stupid, which I don’t think is the case.”