By Sunny Lee
Korea Times Correspondent
BEIJING ― Former President Kim Dae-jung, the architect of the Sunshine Policy of promoting engagement with North Korea, will meet with the Obama administration's front man on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, in Seoul Saturday.
``(The U.S. special envoy) Bosworth will visit my house in Seoul tomorrow,'' Kim said in Beijing on Friday, without elaborating.
Expectations have been revived on the derailed multinational negotiation to dissuade North Korea's nuclear ambition, as Beijing the two prominent figures who support the policy of engaging North Korea this week.
Bosworth arrived in Beijing Thursday, while the former South Korean President had been visiting China for five days until Friday.
In China, Kim met with a group of Chinese experts on North Korea on Thursday at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as well as Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is widely believed to become the next president when the incumbent Hu Jintao steps down in 2012.
It's not clear how the personal visit by the U.S. envoy to the architect of the Sunshine policy would help move forward the stalled nuclear talks.
Bosworth previously served as U.S. ambassador to South Korea and is known to be close to the former South Korean president, who initiated the Sunshine policy of reconciliation with North Korea a decade ago.
In Beijing, Kim underscored the grand principle of how the nuclear impasse can be worked out from here: to go back to the agreement both Pyongyang and Washington made in 2005.
``Both North Korea and the U.S. agreed to the September 19 Joint Declaration in 2005. So, the task now is to carry out that they agreed. And that would work," he said.
In the 2005 agreement, Pyongyang pledged to give up its nuclear programs and Washington in turn agreed to move toward diplomatic normalization with North Korea as well as providing it with economic assistance.
``The two's cooperation in that regard will pave the way to establish a 'peace regime' on the Korean Peninsula,'' Kim said.
As North Korea recently balked at the U.N. sanctions for its rocket launch, saying it would not return to the six-party talks and restart its nuclear facilities that could lead to producing arms-grade plutonium, some pessimism on the nuclear talks has also surfaced.
Analysts also believe the U.S. government has been increasingly turning toward a new strategy of ``benign neglect,'' which is to keep a certain distance from North Korea, which, it sees, is making unreasonable demands, including a U.N. apology for its sanctions.
``The fact that Stephen Bosworth is doing his work part time tells you everything you need to know how [the Obama administration] planned to deal with Pyongyang,'' said a long-time North Korean observer, David Sanger, in a CBS-TV commentary.
Obama's two other special envoys, George Mitchell in the Middle East and Richard Holbrooke in Afghanistan, are both working full time.
Kim disregards such pessimism.
``This issue is like a blind man touching an elephant. Different people may have different opinions. But what is clear is that when the North Korean nuclear issue gets solved, it's good for everyone.
``North Korea's nuclear arsenal cannot feed its starving people. Although China acts as a lifeline to North Korea, providing food aid, but if North Korea at the end of the day doesn't give up its nuclear programs, then China's approach to North Korea will change,'' he said, adding that this is the bottom line he confirmed in his discussions with Chinese leadership.
``China will never tolerate North Korea going nuclear," he said.
When North Korea has nuclear weapons, it will start a chain reaction, Kim said, prompting the South to desire to have the as well.
``That's something the U.S. doesn't want to see. The north's nuclear arsenal will also lead to Japan's nuclear armament, which will be a nightmare for China. So, it's in everyone's interest for North Korea not to have nuclear weapons, including North Korea itself.''
But ``why'' North Korea shouldn't have nuclear weapons is much a much easier question to answer than ``how'' to persuade North Korea not to go forward with further nuclear development, analysts said.
The negative sentiment is also directed at the efficiency of the current multinational negotiation framework, where six countries, including the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan, the U.S., have been involved.
``I have never been a great supporter of the six-party talks. There are too many participants in the talks and every party has its own agenda. The members of the talks traditionally have conflicting and competing security and ideological blocs among themselves. So, it's not easy to reconcile the interest of each party,'' Leonid Petrov, a Russian expert on Korean affairs, told The Korea Times, proposing instead a bilateral track between North Korea and the U.S. as a viable alternative.
Another long-persistent doubt is whether North Korea is really ready to give up its nuclear weapons. This suspicion is even shared by some scholars of the host country of the nuclear talks as well.
``Developing nuclear weapons is a fixed national policy of North Korea,'' said Zhang Liangui, a prominent Chinese security expert at the elite Chinese Communist Party School, in an article Thursday on The International Herald Leader, noting that the claim that North Korea's nuclear drive is largely motivated by its perceived security threat from the U.S. is exaggerated.
Certainly, the challenge of the architect of the Sunshine policy is not just to persuade North Korea to renounce its unclear programs, but also to change many non-believers to become believers of his grand plan, analysts said.