The Chinese Puzzle.(relationship between China and North Korea)

The most important VIP to visit Beijing last week arrived in a military uniform without fanfare or journalists in tow. Less than 48 hours before critical negotiations between the United States, North Korea and China got underway, the No. 2 man in Pyongyang's communist hierarchy, Vice Marshall Cho Myong Rok, met quietly with Chinese President Hu Jintao to ask for military assurances should the United States attack his country. Although details of their encounter remain sketchy, Cho clearly came away with less than he wanted. Publicly, Hu merely reiterated Beijing's desire that the Korean Peninsula remain "non- nuclear" but offered no overt assistance. His obvious intention: to warn "Great Leader" Kim Jong Il not to declare North Korea a nuclear power.

Two days later Kim did just that. North Korea's delegate to three-way talks in the Chinese capital, a mid-level diplomat --named Ri Gun, told Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly over a meal that his country had developed atom bombs, which it may test, use in battle or even export. China, flummoxed by Pyongyang's bad table manners, encouraged both sides to keep talking. But the American delegation packed up and left a day early on the ground that there was nothing more to say.

North Korea may now be alone as never before. By springing its nuclear program during talks China hosted, it has sucker-punched its last major ally in the world. Pyongyang's erratic behavior is also likely to undermine moderates in other capitals. The North's diplomatic bombshell has embarrassed South Korea's new president, Roh Moo Hyun, who has staked his political career on bridging the inter-Korean divide through dialogue. Japanese officials are beginning to discuss bolstering their defenses in ways heretofore unthinkable. And Washington's hawks--many of whom favor a military solution to the crisis--are emboldened by the North's renewed belligerence. But whether the Bush administration's hard-liners are able to raise the pressure on Pyongyang may ultimately be decided by China's disposition toward its communist neighbor. "China has leverage it can use with North Korea," says Lee Chung Hoon, a professor of international relations at Yonsei University. "It may now be in China's interest to be tough on them."

What Washington ultimately asks of Beijing will depend on the outcome of the internal war between the administration's own hawks and doves. The latest squabbling began with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's secretive planning for last week's talks. For more than a month, after his brief trip to China in February, Powell worked to stage a three-way session with the mercurial North Koreans and the Chinese. Powell toiled outside the usual National Security Council meetings to deal directly with the White House. Key conservatives, who oppose negotiating with the North, were clueless until it was too late and President Bush had already agreed to the talks. Many hawks, including Pentagon officials close to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, only heard about the talks from mid-level Japanese officials, NEWSWEEK has learned.

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