Roh, Bush to Affirm Principle of Peaceful N.K. Resolution U.S. Media Zooms In on Summit Preparations Roh and Bush Must Above All Be Frank Roh Hails Korea-U.S. Alliance

For one thing, we know that this Saturday's summit has been arranged at the request of the United States. That it is being held now, despite the fact that the two leaders are scheduled to meet during the ASPEC summit in Busan in November, may serve as indication that there are matters that cannot wait, and that Bush has come to a decision on the North Korean nuclear standoff. That Roh is making a three-night trip of it, an unprecedented itinerary in terms of protocol, also underlines the extraordinary nature of the meeting.

Frequent contacts between Korean and American security officials, too, suggest that something unusual is afoot. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to South Korea, frequent trips to Seoul by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, U.S. visits by National Security Council deputy chief Lee Jong-seok, and subsequent U.S. tours by National Security Adviser Kwon Jin-ho and Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon are not only unusual - they are serious. Add to that remarks American officials made at a seminar held in Washington in May, under the joint sponsorship of the Chosun Ilbo and the Center for Strategic and International Studies: they could barely be squared with ordinary diplomatic sense.

There is a smell in the air that some kind of decision has been reached and some kind of change is being sought. Bush has had time to think, taking a breather from the Iraq War, and seems to have decided that the first year of his second term is the right moment to tackle the North Korean problem head-on. Washington’s suspension of food aid to Pyongyang, its withdrawal from the North of a contingent excavating the remains of U.S. troops, and the deployment in South Korea of stealth fighter-bombers give the impression that preparations for something big are under way.

So now Bush has invited Roh to visit Washington. What will he want to discuss? Bush will perhaps tell Roh his innermost thoughts and hope to listen to Roh's own.

It is important to note that the remarks on North Korea from the top -- from Bush, Rice and Vice President Cheney -- have been concentrated on Kim Jong-il. That, it seems, is where they think the problem lies. Remember that what the North Korean authorities have demanded from Washington above all has been regime security: we can infer that the core of the dispute between the two countries, so to speak, is not nuclear, but has everything to do with the regime. Bush's innermost thoughts, then, are of regime change in North Korea, no matter how he camouflages it as "system change."

In a CNN interview, Cheney called "silly" any notion of using military might against the North, and mentioned instead economic sanctions and referring the nuclear issue to the UN Security Council. The Bush administration’s North Korea strategy will thus come down not to a military solution but to various strangleholds it can apply on the Kim Jong-il regime. Routine mention of the six-party talk option appears to be mere face-saving.

President Roh's response will matter. The U.S. administration and Congress tend to distrust him because his remarks about North Korea and America have so often changed tack: they don’t know what Roh’s innermost thoughts may be. Indeed, Roh may have employed his famous way with words intentionally to induce such confusion. Bush and his subordinates, then, will try to hear Korea’s true intentions from the horse’s mouth - that must be the true purpose of the summit.

All attention therefore will center on what reply Roh will make, and beyond that, what else he may ask of Bush regarding North Korea. Everything depends on whether he will distinguish North Korea, the country, from the men in power; how he will link support to the country with human rights there; how he will propose to co-opt his pro-North Korean support base; and if he will say what needs to be said, “red in the face” with anger or otherwise.

In other words, the summit will determine whether the Republic of Korea and the United States walk the same road with regard to the security and economy of the Korean Peninsula and the very existence of North Korea, or whether here is where they part company. Before America’s showdown with one Korea has even got under way, its showdown with the other has already begun.