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Until recent years, the government in Beijing had kept aloof from anticommunist South Korea, which was the only Asian nation to continue to recognize the Nationalist regime on Taiwan as the legitimate government of China into the 1990s. Although Sino-South Korean trade had grown steadily after China opened up to market economics, the Chinese leadership was much more cautious than that of the Soviet Union in moving toward normalization of political relations with the South.

Nonetheless, by mid-1991 Beijing was following Moscow's lead in moving toward a much closer relationship with Seoul. The previous year, according to Beijing's figures, Chinese trade with South Korea had been seven times larger than its trade with the North and was increasing rapidly, bringing with it a greater need for multifaceted relations. Moreover, the termination of the Sino-Soviet dispute and Moscow's sharply diminished ties with North Korea made Chinese leaders less concerned with the possibility that adjusting their policy toward South Korea could push Kim Il Sung into the arms of the Soviet Union. In addition, China could see a potential domestic political gain in establishing diplomatic relations with South Korea, because it would force Seoul to terminate its long-standing official relationship with Taiwan, thus giving a sharp blow to the island state.

The seriousness of its new situation with China had been brought home dramatically to North Korea during the four-day visit of Chinese premier Li Peng in May, the month before Foreign Minister Qian's trip to Pyongyang. According to a variety of reports, Li broke the unwelcome news that China did not oppose admission of both North and South Korea to the United Nations and would not veto South Korea's application, despite the opposition of Pyongyang to dual admission. China's refusal to veto would assure Seoul's entry because the only other obstacle-a possible veto by the Soviet Union-had been eliminated in April when Gorbachev, during his visit to South Korea's Cheju Island, had promised that Moscow would support Seoul's application for UN membership.

On May 27, North Korea announced it had "no choice" but to apply for UN membership-even though dual membership would be an obstacle to unification-because otherwise the South would join the United Nations alone. This forced reversal at the hands of Moscow and Beijing was a symbol of North Korea's diminished clout with its former communist sponsors. It also may have been the underlying reason for Foreign Minister Qian's visit three weeks later, which was long on ceremony and short on substance. It appeared to be China's way of mending relations after forcing the North Koreans to swallow the bitter pill of dual North-South admission to the UN.

A VISIT TO NORTH KOREA

Although it was a coincidence that I arrived with the Chinese minister, it was hardly surprising that someone of diplomatic importance shared my commercial airline flight. The Chinese civil aviation jet was the only plane to arrive from the outside world that day in the entire country of more than 20 million people. Only eight scheduled airplane flights and seven trains entered North Korea in a week in 1991, making it one of the most reclusive and mysterious nations on earth.

My traveling companion, Washington Post Tokyo correspondent T. R. Reid, and I were greeted in the airport terminal by our official hosts from the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and transported to our hotel in two chauffeured red Mercedes sedans from the government motor pool. So few other vehicles were visible in either direction on the twelve-mile road into town that I could easily count them: twenty-three cars, six buses, three minivans, three trucks, and two jeeps-at midday Monday, or about three vehicles per mile, on the main highway into North Korea's capital city. Hundreds of people could be seen walking along the roadside or waiting patiently for the few overcrowded buses. Several days later, when Reid and I traveled by train to the