The Koreas

In the court of King Kim

North Korean bluster falls on deaf ears

IF HIS spooks in Seoul dare to tell him the truth, then North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il, knows that all the threats he has levelled against South Korea and its president, Lee Myung-bak, have made little impression. Since his inauguration a year ago, Mr Lee has made it clear that he will engage properly with the North only when it makes real progress on dismantling its nuclear arsenal.

The stand has infuriated Mr Kim. For months he has abused the South Korean government, threatening it with “all-out confrontation”. In November North Korea cut the inter-Korean hotline and closed the Red Cross office at the border between the two countries. In December it expelled most South Korean officials at the Kaesong industrial complex, a symbol of economic co-operation. In late January the North declared a 1991 agreement on reconciliation, non-aggression and co-operation between the Koreas to be dead. It says it will no longer honour the western maritime boundary between the two countries, known as the northern limit line, which North Korea has long disputed. This week South Korea’s state press reported that North Korea appeared to be making preparations to test-fire its Taepodong-2 missile, whose 6,700-kilometer range, in theory, puts Alaska in its sights.

In a televised roundtable discussion, Mr Lee dismissed the threats as “not new”. Ordinary South Koreans appear equally impassive, though South Korea’s navy takes seriously the possibility of another clash in the Yellow Sea—the last, deadly, one was in 2002. Choi Kang at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security predicts that the North will test South Korean resolve to defend the northern limit line.

It is probable that Mr Kim’s bluster is intended more for an American audience than a South Korean one—as well as for his own people. After an illness last year, the 67-year-old may want to underscore his grip on the country. Rallying North Korea’s military to his side by attacking South Korea is an old trick of Mr Kim’s. What is more, says Ren Xiao of Fudan University in Shanghai, North Korea feels “marginalised” by the United States as President Barack Obama’s new administration gets to grips with a daunting agenda. Through brinkmanship, says Mr Ren, North Korea is warning the Americans not to forget about its existence and, it thinks, putting pressure on the United States to change its supposedly hostile policy towards North Korea. It is a reminder of just how much the tinpot dictatorship hates to be ignored.

Like any thrower of hissy fits, the North can switch on the charm, too. At a banquet in Pyongyang last month for a Chinese Communist Party big cheese, Mr Kim assured his guest that he was “making efforts to denuclearise the Korean peninsula”; perish the thought, he continued, that he wanted tensions on the peninsula.

Han Sung-joo, a former South Korean foreign minister and now chairman of the Asan Institute, a think-tank, says that this behaviour is to be expected. North Korea regularly seeks to show a smiling face to China and America, while keeping a stern one for the South. It is incensed that Mr Lee’s administration will not discuss honouring inter-Korean agreements signed by Mr Kim when he met with then South Korean Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, in 2000 and 2007 respectively.

Both these presidents were also the targets of abuse at the start of their five-year terms, before historic meetings with the Dear Leader. Mr Lee may yet have such a summit too. For now, time is on his side. Last month he nominated Hyun In-taek, the architect of his tougher strategy towards North Korea, to head up the unification ministry, which traditionally conciliates the North. The president promises massive aide and investment, with the aim of raising North Korean per-head income to $3,000 a year within a decade, if only the North gives up its atomic bombs. As Mr Lee sees it, the ball is firmly in Mr Kim’s court.