'SUNSHINE' IS BEST FOR NORTH, SEOUL SAYS

By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan

Washington Post - International Herlad Tribune

Thursday, June 24, 1999

President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea on Wednesday defended his policy of engaging North Korea - despite a string of recent confrontations including a naval battle - arguing that, in the broad sweep of history, engagement with communism has always worked better than confrontation. "To the people who are skeptical about this policy, especially those in Washington, I ask them to look at what the United States did to the Soviet Union, I ask them to look at history," said Mr. Kim, in an hour-long interview with The Washington Post at the presidential Blue House. He is scheduled to meet with President Bill Clinton in the United States on July 2. Mr. Kim repeatedly likened North Korea to the Soviet Union, saying that it was détente, "not the Cold War," that ultimately caused it to collapse. Mr. Kim said that containment never worked with China, but former President Richard Nixon's efforts to visit and engage Beijing did. "It is the nature of a Communist regime, if you try to pressure it or push it into a corner, t

he stronger it will become," he said. Mr. Kim is facing criticism at home and abroad, especially in the U.S. Congress, from those who say his "sunshine policy" of engagement is a naive and ineffective approach to a country that earns much of its cash exporting missiles to rogue nations, counterfeiting dollars and smuggling drugs. Now, just as Mr. Kim has offered the impoverished country new tourism and development deals that promise more than $1 billion in revenue, North Korea in recent days has opened fire on Southern vessels, has balked at long-planned diplomatic talks in Beijing, and is currently detaining a South Korean tourist on trumped-up subversion charges. "Sunshine is not a naive policy, and our combat readiness is very powerful," Mr. Kim said, in his first interview since the June 15 shoot-out in the Yellow Sea, in which a North Korean ship was sunk and 20 or more North Korean sailors were presumed killed. "No other alternative has a chance; this policy will ultimately succeed." "I believe they mu

st have learned a great many lessons from the clash," said Mr. Kim, who said North Korea may have been testing his military resolve. "Our clear military victory in the West Sea clash demonstrated that we are not naive in dealing with the North." Mr. Kim's visit to Washington comes at a pivotal time, just as former Defense Secretary William Perry is completing a review of U.S. policy toward North Korea for the Clinton administration. Mr. Kim, who has been in close contact with Mr. Perry and will meet with him in Washington, offered details Wednesday of the proposals that Mr. Perry recently brought to Pyongyang. Mr. Kim said Mr. Perry's proposals, which have been a closely guarded secret in Washington, contain a "give-and-take that would end the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula." Mr. Kim saidthat the "comprehensive package" outlined by Mr. Perry to the North Korean government would offer this: a guarantee of national security, respectability in the international community, and desperately needed economic assis

tance, including the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions. In return, Mr. Kim said, North Korea would have to promise to not make or posses nuclear weapons, halt development and sales of ballistic missiles, and refrain from military provocations against South Korea. Mr. Kim said it was too soon to measure North Korea's response. He said he tended to agree with analysts who say there is building friction between hard-liners in Pyongyang who are suspicious of Seoul and Washington, and moderates who are interested in opening up. Mr. Kim also said intelligence reports showed that North Korea was making preparations to test-launch an advanced ballistic missile, which would have sufficient range to strike Alaska or Hawaii. He said there was no proof that North Korea had decided to actually conduct the launch, and he said it appeared that any such launch would require two or three more months of preparation. North Korea is one of the world's leading suppliers of ballistic missiles and is a known supplier of terrorist

groups. Last summer, North Korea alarmed the world by test-firing a Taepo Dong I missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Kim said it appeared that the missile currently being prepared for test-launch was a longer-range version, called the Taepo Dong II. "We must warn North Korea that should it launch another missile, it will lead to a serious situation; it would result in great disadvantages to North Korea," Mr. Kim said, declining to specify how South Korea might react. During the interview, Mr. Kim, 74, was confident and impassioned about holding steady despite the storm of criticism. As his political opponents are calling for him to abandon his North Korean policies, Mr. Kim said he preferred to take the "long view" and not change course each time North Korea commits some new inexplicable act of hostility. "My feeling is, 'Well, they are at it again,"' Mr. Kim said. "That is the nature we have come to understand of North Korea. So I tell my people not to be overjoyed or not to be overly disappoint

ed by every action that they take." For example, the detention of the South Korean tourist on Sunday has caused Mr. Kim to suspend what is arguably the centerpiece of his sunshine efforts: a $942 million tourism and development program through which 83,000 South Koreans have visited North Korea since last fall. He said he would not allow the project to go forward until the tourist - a housewife arrested for saying that North Korean defectors live comfortably in the South - is released and the North Koreans give "firm, solid assurance" that the incident will not be repeated. But Mr. Kim said he would not prevent Hyundai, which is conducting the project, and other South Korean companies from continuing to seek ways to engage the North economically. He said that increased investment in the North gave South Korea increasingly greater influence over events there. "We're not swayed by every little act that North Korea shows," he said. "No matter how proudly or loudly or defiantly it speaks to the outside world, it

cannot sustain its economy and it cannot feed its people." Mr. Kim said that some of the recent North Korean provocations may be due to "great desperationover the success of my diplomatic endeavors." He noted that North Korea's traditional patrons, Russia and China, both endorsed his engagement efforts when he visited Moscow and Beijing. "I think this is creating pressure on North Korea," Mr. Kim said.