A Failure to Communicate.(China/Korea)

Chinese diplomats are losing their patience over the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The source of their frustration isn't so much the tough talk coming from Pyongyang as much as the apparent unwillingness of Washington to say much at all. Beijing plans to host the next six- party summit on the North Korean nuclear crisis--it hopes before the Chinese New Year later this month--and Chinese strategists are worried the Americans will be as cool to their North Korean counterparts as they were at the last meeting in August. In those talks, Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly showed up under strict orders to present an opening statement that had been cleared word for word by the White House--and nothing more. When the North Koreans sought to clarify Kelly's comments in a private meeting, Kelly had no choice but to stick to his script. "His response to the North Koreans was, 'Go back and read my opening statement. It's all there'," says Charles L. Pritchard, a North Korea expert at the Brookings Institution, who is part of an unofficial U.S. delegation that was invited last week to visit the North's nuclear complex at Yongbyon.

Beijing's fears over the quality of conversation the next time around are probably warranted. For starters the deep divisions within the administration over North Korea policy will almost guarantee, says one official, that Kelly "will be kept on a tight leash." Nor has the ongoing dialogue among the six parties to the talks--which include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas--yielded any breakthroughs. Since the August summit, diplomatic efforts have centered on the timing of the next meeting, not substantive differences.

Even the biggest policy shift in the current stalemate--President George W. Bush's October offer to commit to a multilateral security guarantee in exchange for North Korea's disarmament--failed to breathe life into the next round. Shortly after Bush's statement--viewed as a victory for those policymakers who favor a diplomatic resolution to the crisis--administration hawks struck back by making the security offer contingent on a nearly impossible concession--"the full, verifiable and irreversible dismantling" of the North's nuclear program. "The hard- liners know they can't fight a public presidential announcement," says ...