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UNITED NATIONS — What plays well in Pyongyang won't necessarily play in Peoria. Thus while I'm happy the USA can be part of the political thaw on the frozen Cold War reaches of the Korean peninsula, the fact remains that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's venture into the communist cookoo-land of Kim Jong-il sends a decidedly mixed message to both the North Korean dictator and America's regional allies.
Albright's visit to the reclusive Marxist regime in North Korea — in effect, gave an undeserved benediction of political legitimacy from the USA to a hideous dictatorship quaintly called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Moreover for an American Secretary of State to participate — albeit very self-consciously at first — at a stadium propaganda mass rally for the Cult of the Dictator Kim Jong-il is to put it bluntly — stupid. While such theatrical antics are put on to impress visiting leaders from places like Tanzania or Togo, this is not the place for an American Secretary of State.
For the State Department to have permitted such a protocol blunder, thus allowing Albright to review a traditional totalitarian mass rally defies belief. The chanting masses, the revolutionary theater and the political choreography put on for "Dear Leader" Kim and witnessed by Madeleine Albright, evokes Red China or Soviet Russia — participating in such political pornography brings disgrace to her office.
Naturally Albright's answer is that our relations are focused on declawing North Korea's missile potential and military capability. Indeed warming South/North Korean ties following the June "Sunshine" Summit and diplomatic links having been opened by Italy as well as Britain, France and Germany show long sought momentum in bringing North Korea out of self-imposed neo-Stalinist seclusion. Will the newly found Kimraderie, lead to the same sort of gushy bonhomie offered Yasser Arafat not long ago?
Albright pressed Pyongyang to stop its rogue missile program — with its exports to Iran and Syria. Fine, and how successful were we in Iraq even with inspectors on the ground? And what will the payoff be here? Pyongyang will weave a pattern of financial blackmail as it did to supposedly shelve its budding nuclear program a few years ago.
Curiously just before Albright's foray, the Chief of the Chinese General Staff visited Pyongyang to brief the Korean comrades on the view from Beijing. The divided Korean peninsula remains the geopolitical nexus of big power interests-- China, Russia, Japan and the USA. China views both Koreas in its traditional sphere of influence.
Clearly People's China wants North Korea to "open up" to the world as to allow Western cash, loans and investments to resuscitate its moribund Marxist system much as it did in China's post-Mao era. Naturally North Korea needs more food aid, not to mention long sought political legitimacy as an equal player with rival South Korea.
Hong Kong's respected Far Eastern Economic Review in an article "Marching to Kim's Tune," commented, "It's apparent that the US has abandoned an unstated goal of bringing about a collapse of North Korea through multiple pressures. North Korea is meanwhile seeking what amounts to a U.S. guarantee of its survival."
Albright correctly briefed our South Korean and Japanese allies over this latest diplomatic volte face. With 38,000 American troops treaty bound to defend South Korea, and both Seoul and Tokyo privately nervous about Washington's new posture on Pyongyang, the strategic stakes are high.
North Korea will use its smiling diplomacy to attempt to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul. Pyongyang wants a peace treaty with Washington--a formal end to the 1953 Korean war truce--which would put the Seoul government in second place.
President Bill Clinton wishes to visit the DPRK before the end of his term — part of his legacy. The date November 11 (Veterans Day) is mentioned for such an ill-timed journey! Clinton has assumed the role of a diplomatic Flying Dutchman, in search of ports of call — conflicts and crises desperately in search of a solution. One hopes that in Pyongyang the President won't play political patsy.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
