Wait-and-Hope in Korea

Athaw may finally be setting in along the last frozen frontier of the Cold War. This week’s unprecedented meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea reaffirmed the two countries’ shared aspiration for national reunification, 55 years after Korea was liberated from brutal Japanese occupation but left geographically and ideologically divided. No one expects to see a unitary Korea for many years or even decades. But for the first time there may be a chance for a continuing dialogue that could ease tensions and the threat of conflict.

How real that opportunity is will become clear soon. One of the few specifics in the vaguely worded declaration signed in Pyongyang by South Korea’s President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il says the two sides “will exchange groups of dispersed family members” around Aug. 15. Once or twice in the past the North permitted brief meetings among a handful of war-separated relatives. Seoul estimates there are 1.8 million such families, and for South Koreans the prospect of family reunions is the greatest gift their president could have brought home. The test will come in how extensively North Korea allows the pledge of reunion to be carried out.

The summit’s big surprise turned out to be the persona Kim Jong Il showed the world. In his appearances with Kim Dae Jung he seemed relaxed, jovial, respectful toward the older man. He spoke in public--a very rare thing--and made light of his reclusive reputation. If his aim was to seem reasonable and informed about events and trends outside his borders he largely succeeded, at least with many South Koreans.

At the same time the unquestioning cult of personality that envelops Kim Jong Il, as it did his late father, was on full display, along with the stifling controls over information and the regimentation of North Korean life. North Koreans saw only severely edited film of the Kim-Kim meetings and were allowed to hear almost nothing of what Kim Dae Jung had to say. North Korea may be moving tentatively to open itself diplomatically to other nations, but its society remains tightly closed, an all but impenetrable universe of secrecy, insularity and suspicion.

The key question is whether Pyongyang has made the strategic decision to modify its ideology of juche--self-reliance--and reorient its disastrous command economy or whether it seeks only to secure more aid as it continues to confront famine and economic collapse. Is Kim Jong Il a reformer? Or is he simply manipulating the hopes and fears of his longtime adversaries, maintaining a huge army that consumes much of his nation’s scarce resources and hinting at perhaps illusory progress in his nuclear and missile programs?

Kim Dae Jung thinks real change is possible, and he’s donating more food and fertilizer to the North to encourage it. Washington, meanwhile, is preparing to lift some sanctions that have been in place since the Korean War, hoping to induce better behavior. It shouldn’t take long to see whether the good feelings of this week’s summit are followed by tangible good results.