By Hong Soon-il

My recent journey to the United States and Canada was primarily aimed at meeting with my old-time friends and acquaintances, as well as some relatives, who live at various locations, and also getting a feeling about what’s going on around there. The three-week tour starting from San Francisco in late April covered more than half a dozen cities including Los Angeles, Washington and Cambridge, Mass., the site of Harvard University.

Among those whom I met for informal yet intense conversations were journalists, specialists on Korea and academic gurus, such as Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel, and the topics invariably focused on Korean issues, ranging from South Korea’s domestic situation to the prospects of inter-Korean relations and, especially, the Bush administration’s policy toward the Korean peninsula.

As anticipated, all of the American companions were anxious to see the peace momentum launched by the inter-Koran summit last June would reap a success not only for meaningful reconciliation and peace between North and South Korea but also for regional stability in East Asia. However, views on how to achieve a desirable outcome were diverse and even conflicting, a divergence that was fueled by President George W. Bush who publicly recorded his skepticism about North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s credibility in dealing with the United States and South Korea as well.

Many of them were critical of what they dubbed the ‘disturbing’ way of the Bush administration in taking an outright hard-line stance toward North Korea, callously shelving the previous Clinton administration’s diplomatic deals with Pyongyang on missile nonproliferation and other vital issues under the pretext of a policy review. Some regretted that Bush had recklessly cold-shouldered President Kim Dae-jung from South Korea, a close ally, who visited him last March for talks on Korean issues, resulting in a standstill of all contacts between the two Koreas.

Others, however, stressed the need for an extensive reappraisal of the U.S. approach toward North Korea - and, for that matter, Seoul’s engagement with Pyongyang - on the grounds that no change in the North’s military threat to its neighbors was in sight and that Kim Jong-il remained essentially unpredictable despite his manipulation of peace gestures. According to the self-claimed ‘realists,’ Kim Dae-jung’s visit to Washington was premature as Bush and his aides, barely several weeks in office at the time, were less than prepared to listen to his sermon on the urgency of engagement with North Korea and his host’s blunt reaction, however undiplomatic, was not totally unanticipated.

My tete-a-tetes with the Korea watchers were kept lively as a string of developments involving Korea provided fresh topics. May started with Bush’s formal announcement to commit the United States to building a controversial missile defense system, to which North Korea and China have been vehemently opposed and Seoul is compelled to pursue a ‘strategic ambiguity.’ A week later, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage visited Seoul to sell the need for the missile shield, while dropping a hint that Washington would resume talks with Pyongyang in the near future. Then, Secretary of State Colin Powell categorically said that a dialogue with North Korea would be conducted at a place and time of the U.S.’s choosing, with another senior official warning the North that it should no longer expect anything for free.

The cautious American message to North Korea closely followed a visit to Pyongyang by a European Union delegation, led by Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson, which obtained Kim Jong-il’s word to extend the moratorium of missile tests until 2003. Kim, holding out an olive branch while waiting to see how Washington would wrap up its policy review, however, left room for leverage in future negotiations by making a proviso that his country would continue exporting missiles and missile technology.

After all, it will be inevitable for Washington to reopen talks with North Korea at some point. However, as my American companions accented, the negotiations would be much tougher than the ones conducted by the Clinton administration since the Bush team is explicitly intent on securing reciprocity, transparency and verification of North Korean words and actions, an approach that would invoke Pyongyang’s obstinate resistance.

At issue is the all too obvious impact of the tug-of-war between Washington and Pyongyang on inter-Korean relations. Seoul is helplessly constrained by the hard-line U.S. position, which prompted the North to suspend its deals with the South. President Kim recently confided that inter-Korean ties could make headway only when North Korea and the United States improve their relations.

With the once brisk inter-Korean contacts stalled across the board, let alone the diminished chance of Kim Jong-il’s planned visit to Seoul, President Kim’s sunshine policy that earned him the coveted Nobel Peace Prize is being left in the doldrums. The domestic front is also in bad shape. While the national economy is mired in a renewed slump, the president’s party suffered a political humiliation as none of its candidates managed to win local by-elections conducted in seven constituencies late last month, suggesting a plummeted popularity rating of the chief executive.

Incidentally, while strolling the Harvard campus, I saw a score of shelter tents pitched on the lawn in front of the university president’s office, with numerous banners and placards put up. A group of students was staging a weeks-long sit-in in support of low-waged workers at the prestigious school. One of the banners read, ‘We Can’t Live on Prestige.’ That message somehow led me to think of President Kim who can’t live on the prestige of the Nobel Prize but should do something anew to liven up his stature.

Hong Soon-il, a former editor and editorial writer of The Korea Times Seoul, writes columns in Seoul.