By Howard W. French. The New York Times. April 16, 2000
SEOUL -- Throughout 40 years of cold war and its aftermath, Fidel Castro has cast himself as the man who really understands the world, the intellectual scold of the rich and powerful, the nemesis of the world's last superpower. And there he was again last week, preaching to the world's rich
nations about their obligations to the world's poorest nations.
Just north of here on the other side of the world, in North Korea, was a regime often seen as perhaps the most intransigent, introverted and unpredictable -- in other words, least worldly-wise -- on the planet.
But judging by events of last week, it is the North Koreans who seem to have come first to a reluctant understanding of how the world really works these days: That what a desperately impoverished Communist outpost sitting next to a capitalist hotshot needs most is not an enemy to rail against
but a partner to join futures with.
Consider how different that view is from the one Mr. Castro offered at a summit meeting of the world's poor nations in Havana, in the kind of speech he has been giving almost throughout living memory. He said the world was in need of a "Nuremberg to put on trial the economic order that they
have imposed on us."
What was wrong with that picture, of course, is what has been missing from Cuba's foreign relations now for five decades: normal diplomatic and economic ties with the United States. Without them, history since the Soviet collapse strongly suggests that no number of visits from heads of
state will make a moldering Cuba thrive.
Coincidentally, North Korea was also contemplating a summit meeting -- this one in June. It is to be the first ever between leaders of the two Koreas. In these two summit meetings are critical lessons about how to unravel the final, knotty strands of the cold war -- lessons that North Korea
seems to have absorbed first.
By announcing that its reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, will begin dealing directly and at the presidential level with South Korea, Pyongyang may have finally figured out how to come in from the cold. Although caution is still very much in order, diplomats and political analysts here say North
Korea may be signaling a historic shift in its strategy by deciding that South Korea's greatest value is as an awkward partner rather than an unredeemable foil.
For Cuba, an analogous development would be to see Mr. Castro finally come to terms with an American president -- Bill Clinton is his ninth -- perhaps after concluding that without the United States, no conceivable amount of Canadian mining or tourism investment will suffice to re-energize his
country's economy and prospects.
Of course Mr. Castro cannot be blamed alone for the yawning political distance between Cuba and United States. Where Cuba is concerned, Washington has simply never had a Kim Dae Jung, the present South Korean leader, who at great political risk conceived and doggedly pursued a policy of
engagement with the North.
"Instead of trying to first disarm the North, as Washington has so adamantly tried but failed to do, Kim sent representatives of nongovernmental organizations north with food, clothing and medicine," said Kenneth C. Quinones, a former State Department Korea expert who is director of
Mercy Corps International's Northeast Asia Project. "Instead of economic isolation, he encouraged businessmen from the South to go North." Several recent administrations, including Mr. Clinton's, have toyed with the idea of "normalizing" relations with Cuba, only to conclude that
the calendar of domestic politics made the costs too great.
Those costs were amply illustrated last week by the inability of even President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, to get a quick resolution of the travails of Elián González, trapped as he is in a custody battle between a father who wants to keep living in Mr. Castro's Cuba
and relatives in Miami who revile Mr. Castro above all else.
Well into his 70's and perhaps with his eye fixed on history, Mr. Castro seems to find little appeal in making concessions to Washington, especially of the democratic kind.
"The Koreans have a summit, there is a two-nation policy in China and Vietnam reforms its economy, but none of it matters because of a notion called Cuban exceptionalism," said Anthony P. Maingot, a professor of sociology at Florida International University in Miami. Using the Spanish
word for vanity and unreality, he continued: "What we are left with is Fidel and his vanidad, and when you are talking about totalitarian states, personalities count. He simply sees no benefit from change." The next generation of Cuban leaders may well be more pragmatic, with the essential
caveat that they deal with Washington, not the conservative, Miami-based exiles.
It is in this light that the announced Korean summit appears most impressive. Experts differ over what brought it about. For some, dollars alone are the answer. Pyongyang itself has described the last couple of years of economic free fall as resembling a near-death experience. As a senior South
Korean official said last week, "They have come to realize that we are likely to become their main donors in areas like food and fuel."
Moreover, lowering tensions would likely pave the way for the North to attract aid and foreign investment.
Others, however, believe that politics are driving a North Korean regime that is essentially shielded from internal security threats. Now is simply the time, they say, when the diplomatic stars are all aligned, meaning that Seoul, Tokyo and, perhaps more tentatively, Washington, seem ready to do
business with Pyongyang.
"We are at a serious moment here, where things could go very, very well," said Leon V. Sigal, a Columbia University expert in international relations. "To say they could still go badly is not news on the Korean peninsula. But we could be seeing fundamental shifts in the political
relationships, and this is taking place because Seoul, Tokyo and Washington are moving in the same direction for once."
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