North and South Korea

Shall we do lunch?

The phone in Pyongyang goes dead

SOUTH KOREA’S president, Lee Myung-bak, may have an interesting lunch companion when he visits Beijing for the Olympics this week. North Korea’s de facto head of state, Kim Yong-nam, could be sharing the table at the official lunch for visiting bigwigs.

The two men have much to talk about. Mr Lee recently offered an olive branch by dumping his earlier stance that the North’s progress on denuclearisation should set the pace of relations between the two countries. But events have got in the way. The North has refused to co-operate with the South’s investigation of the killing in July of a South Korean tourist, Park Wang-ja, by the North’s army at Mount Kumgang, a northern resort. When the South stopped tourists from visiting the resort, the North threatened to take military action against the “slightest hostile act”.

Behind this spat is an elaborate dance involving the two Koreas, nuclear weapons and America. Since Mr Lee’s election last December, North Korea has kept up a steady drumbeat of insults and military manoeuvres. The anti-American beef protests that turned into anti-government demonstrations in the South further encouraged the North to be as awkward as possible (not that they usually need encouragement: their normal tactic is to be as shrill as possible until the other side caves in). South Korean security officials say that, for the first time in years, the two sides are not talking to each other even informally. The phone in Pyongyang has gone dead.

No doubt the North hopes to take advantage of domestic pressures on Mr Lee. Since signalling in a speech to parliament on the day of Ms Park’s death that he wanted to resume a dialogue, he has come under attack even from his own conservative supporters, angered by the North’s lack of remorse over Ms Park’s death. The North’s shrillness may also be an attempt to undermine the South as the North seeks a warming of relations with America as part of the talks over nuclear weapons. If so, the tactic seems not to be working. When George Bush stopped in Seoul on his way to the games he heaped praise on the South and called on the North to give up its nuclear weapons “or be the most sanctioned regime in the world”.

North Korea is nothing if not opaque. In Beijing, where the Chinese hosts are eager for better relations between the Koreas, Mr Kim could boost the North’s standing by the simple expedient of apologising to Mr Lee for Ms Park’s death. But platitudes are more likely to be on the menu.