The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [125]
"HOW LONG WILL THE RED FLAG FLY?"
The Soviet Union's rapid movement to diplomatic relations with Seoul was only the latest in a succession of international developments that were making Kim Il Sung's globe spin out of control. Within little more than a year, the South had established full diplomatic ties and important economic ties with Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania, all of them Kim's former allies, all of which had previously shunned the Seoul regime. The maverick Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, who had been Kim's special friend, had been overthrown and executed. Kim's other special European friend, East German leader Erich Honecker, had been deposed and the Berlin wall opened. The former East German communist regime, North Korea's close European ally, was in the process of being taken over by the capitalistic West. As a result of the fall of communism in Europe, there was intense speculation that Kim 11 Sung and his regime would be the next to go.
In advance of the sensational Gorbachev-Roh meeting in San Francisco, it had been highly uncertain how North Korea would react. Three days before the meeting, the State Department's Korea desk had speculated in a confidential briefing paper that "the shock of Gorbachev's meeting with Roh-especially when he has avoided visiting North Korea-could spark a major leadership crisis in Pyongyang, which could heighten military tensions on the peninsula. It will be hard for the North to let an insult of this magnitude pass. In their rage and frustration, Kim 11 Sung and Kim Jong II might lash out at the USSR, the ROK, or us." The chief of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in a separate confidential memorandum to his superiors, said that in the aftermath of the San Francisco meeting, a "firestorm" was likely in Pyongyang. In talking points submitted by the State Department to the White House in preparation for President Bush's conversation with Roh following the meeting, a central question on the minds of American officials was, "Could Pyongyang strike out irrationally?"
In fact, rather than turn inward or "lash out," as feared after the Soviet setback, Pyongyang sharply intensified a flurry of diplomatic activism with China, Japan, and South Korea that it had started several months earlier. Overtures were also being made to the United States, but Washington wasn't listening. In sum, North Korea sought at least briefly to match the diplomatic accomplishments of its rival below the thirty-eighth parallel. However, it was less prepared and less well equipped to make serious gains.
Only a week after Shevardnadze's abrupt departure from Pyongyang, Kim Il Sung traveled by train to Shenyang, in northeast China, for unannounced meetings with Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, on September 11 and Deng Xiaoping, the senior Chinese leader, on September 12. Among old friends, Kim did not disguise the fact that he had been severely shaken by the loss of his friends and allies in Europe and even more by the Soviet Union's decisions. According to a former Chinese diplomat who had access to the details, Kim Il Sung's central question for Deng was, "How long will the red flag fly?" In other words, how long will communism last, in view of the European and Soviet developments? Deng responded optimistically that the outlook was still bright. Although the Soviet Union was faltering, Deng insisted that Asian countries were defending the faith and that Marxism-Leninism was still strong in China, Vietnam, and Cuba as well as in North Korea.
Kim also raised the question of North Korean economic reforms. Deng, who had been urging Kim for years to follow his reformist example, encouraged him anew. The North Korean leader also made a subtle plea that China not follow the Soviet lead in recognizing the South, or at