it will appeal to Seoul for a negotiated unity. Pyongyang may even begin to court its former enemy South Korea for its own self-preservation. 17 If so, Pyongyang will obviously have to rethink its policy aimed at "independence" and "democratization" of South Korea. 18 It is possible that Pyongyang may try to have it both ways: substantive linkage with South Korea while maintaining its assertion that South Korea must change its ways first if the two Koreas are to reconcile their differences. In any case, even as it publicly derides South Korea's "bankrupt" economy, North Korea now seems to have no qualm about asking for its investments and economic assistance. This was evident in its behind-the-scenes contacts in 1992-93 with South Korean business firms represented in Beijing, soliciting their "participation" in Pyongyang's new 7-Year plan slated to begin in 1994. North Korea might get some needed help for three reasons: South Korean firms are eager to bring an end to their own sluggish business by cashing in on the North's "cheap labor"; A perception in Seoul that South Korea should invest in the North to counter a possible Japanese economic dominance developing in the North; 19 And growing perceptions in Seoul and elsewhere that aiding the North now can be a less costly alternative to its collapse that, analysts fear, would impact severely on South Korea's own economic and political stability. Where the two Koreas are concerned, the United States, Japan, China, and Russia all have one interest in common: a stable and nuclear-free Korean peninsula. Pyongyang's relations with each of these countries will be crucial to its overall future direction. The future of Pyongyang's relationship with Washington depends on the outcome of several unresolved issues. The most pressing now concerns Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, the existence of which it denies while refusing to establish the veracity of its own claim by allowing IAEA inspections...
