The meeting between Glyn Davies, coordinator for US policy on North Korea, and Pyongyang's veteran negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan on February 23 in Beijing is the first substantive contact between the two sides since Kim Jong Il died in December. The US had appeared unperturbed following the longtime dictator's death. White House press secretary Jay Carney said almost laconically that it caused no worries in Washington.

"I don't think we have any additional concerns beyond the one that we have long had with North Korea's approach to nuclear issues and we will continue to press them to meet their international obligations," Carney said at the time. "But we have no new concerns as a result of this event."

In reality, power shifts in North Korea cannot be quite so irrelevant to the United States. After all, in the past few months, US diplomats were able to take up the thread of discussion with North Korea once again. Last year, delegations from both countries met twice to negotiate North Korea's disputed nuclear program.

Under pressure

For North Korea, it has always been a professed goal to negotiate directly with the US. Pyongyang wanted to force its archenemy to the negotiating table. And talks with the US are a propaganda success for the regime, it believes - particularly at home.

"The leadership has successfully communicated to the population that it is surrounded by enemies and uses this to justify the repression and the poor supplies," said Rüdiger Frank, a North Korea expert at the University of Vienna in Austria. "The domestic pressure will increase to improve living conditions at that moment in which the regime can no longer plausibly portray the country as one under siege."

Since the 1990s, North Korea has often only been able to either barely or not at all feed its population. The regime is under pressure, despite all of its attempts to seal the country off and repress the people. Kim Hyun-uk, a consultant to South Korea's president, said he even believes that an overthrow of the regime can be expected at any time.

"We see movement," he said and referred to a study by the Russian research institute IMEMO, which recently forecast the collapse of the North Korean regime within the next 20 years. "In the meantime, Russia as well as China have realized that Korean unification is in their interests."

China's role

But Kim Hyun-uk is relatively alone in this assessment. China in particular has no interest at all in a quick Korean unification - mainly because it would enable US troops to advance to its border. For China, a weak but recalcitrant North Korea is by all means of use.

There is one point, however, in which Beijing and the West do not deviate too far from each other. The fact that Pyongyang constantly stirs up agitation with its nuclear weapons also bothers the leadership in Beijing - and it has so far been unable to dissuade North Korea of its weapons plans. "Military first" has to date been the slogan of the North Korean regime - and it will probably remain so.

"The ruling class is made up of generals from a small elite group," said Kim Taewoo from the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. "And they want to keep their status."

Ultimately, the regime in North Korea time and again manages to utilize its nuclear arsenal as a threat. Sometimes there are aid shipments for certain promises; sometimes Pyongyang manages a diplomatic upgrading, like in this case now. Most notably, it repeatedly pits the two most important military powers in the region against each other.

Author: Mathias Bölinger / sac
Editor: Rob Mudge