By Ahn Jung-hyo

"Why would the U. S. Congress want Mr. Hwang Jang-yop to speak at the hearing on North Korea?" said Kim Chi-man, a reporter for a vernacular daily newspaper, after two mugs of draft beer recently. "They already know what the former North Korean high official would tell them about the `sunshine’ policy. He defected to the South because he hated the North Korean regime, didn’t he?"

"Maybe that’s why they want to hear him talk," I said. "To doubly convince themselves that they have valid reasons strong enough to hate North Korea."

"Well, they’ve already heard enough, I guess, about the massive military buildup by the North from the commander of the American forces in Korea at another hearing," said Han Si-mim, the owner of the video parlor, who had joined us for a casual drink at a beer house in my neighborhood. "The American military commander testified at the Senate that North Korea is beefing up its military might in ‘the most extensive scale’ in history. I wonder why they should keep working so hard to build a negative image that the whole world already harbors about North Korea."

"Hawks are gathering around the Bush Administration," said Kim Chi-man. "The Associated Press reported that Secretary of State Colin Powell had said the United States is `nowhere near’ establishing diplomatic relations with North Korea, ‘a totalitarian regime’ that threatens U.S. interests in Asia."

"I wonder what are the real U.S interests in Asia," Han Si-min said.

"They seem to prefer to keep North Korea as their enemy than to get friendly with them. I wonder if it serves the American interests more to build up tension on the other side of the Pacific."

"Probably that was why the American President gave such a cold shoulder to the Korean President during President Kim’s visit to the White House," Kim Chi-man said. "He probably wanted to let his hostility be plainly known to the Southern leader, who is too friendly with the old favorite enemy of the United States."

"I don’t believe President Bush was even aware of the cold shoulder he gave," I said.

"But cold he certainly was when they discussed the Sunshine Policy," the reporter said. "President Bush seemed to be in a bad need for a villain. To justify the American defense program, as some suspect. Or for whatever reason or reasons. And he began to beat the bush to ferret out the old arch-villain of Communist North Korea. President Bush and his men don’t want South Korea to become one nation again with the North, I presume."

"Why do you think the American leaders suddenly started to pitch up their negative campaign to create the impression that a war is imminent again on the Korean peninsula?" I asked.

"Maybe they want to rebuild the Cold War," Mr. Han Si-min said. "To protect their interests in Asia, you know.’’

"Consider what they’re doing,’’ the reporter said, with a soft chuckle, "to North and South Korean efforts for national reunification, to the Chinese airplane and to the Japanese fishing boat, Americans must have really hard feelings about Asia."

"Or maybe they have an anachronistic perception about the Asian situations in general," Han said. "Maybe the American government is subscribing to a newspaper fifty years old. The newspapers of 1950s. Of the McCarthy era."

"And they’re losing fast the beachhead gained hard and painstakingly by Presidents Carter and Clinton on this peninsula," I said, emptying my mug. "Americans complain that they don’t get back enough for what they give to North Korea. But what does North Korea have to give away to anybody?"

"Did you read the interview story with Robert Gates, the former CIA director, by one of our correspondents?" the reporter said.

Mr. Han and I had not.

"He advised South Koreans to be wary about North Korean tactics to separate Seoul and Washington, D.C.," said Kim Chi-man, beckoning at the waiter to order another round of beer. "But somehow I got the impression that Washington, D. C. is trying to keep Seoul forever separated from and confronting Pyongyang."

"North Korea is like a frightened stubborn child who doesn’t believe it’s safe at all to come out to the sun," said Han Si-min. "And it’s not a good policy to push and harass and bully the frightened child out of the closet. The way the Bush men are trying to. Carter and Clinton men probably understood North Korea a lot more than the new men in American leadership do now."

"Maybe they should remember Aesop’s sun," I said.

"Maybe they should have done more homework about a regime as volatile as the North Korean one," the reporter said, "before starting to say all those harsh things about the Korean Communists."

Ahn Jung-hyo is a writer in Seoul.