1981, in bitter opposition to Seoul being chosen as host city for the 1988 Summer Olympics, North Korea reportedly voted for Nagoya, Japan, calling into question its devotion to Korean nationalism, which Pyongyang claims should transcend its ideological differences with South Korea; in 1986, Pyongyang turned around to propose "cohosting" the Olympics with South Korea.4 In 1991, despite its years of "principled" opposition to the idea of a separate United Nations seat for North and South Korea, Pyongyang changed its mind and applied for UN membership, vowing at the same time it would continue to struggle for a "one-Korea policy." Pyongyang announced on March 12,1993 that it would withdraw from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT); on June 11, it reversed itself stating that North Korea would temporarily "suspend" its withdrawal from the NPT--but without agreeing to special inspections demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).5 North Korea's approach to Seoul has undergone further, more subtle shift since the early 1980s, when Pyongyang decided to place more emphasis on anti-Americanism in its propaganda activities aimed at South Koreans. The shift helped Pyongyang capitalize on rising anti-American sentiments among South Korean student activists in the wake of a bloody suppression of an urban uprising in Kwangju in May 1980. In 1983, Pyongyang stepped up an anti-U.S. "consciousnes-raising" propaganda, asserting that the United States was neither "protector" nor "partner" of the South Korean people. In another effort to disrupt South Korea's relations with the United States, Pyongyang launched an "anti-nuclear war movement" in the early 1980s. The movement had two aims: first, to evoke fear of a nuclear holocaust that North Korea claimed was imminent due to the U.S. nuclear presence in the South and, second, to link the initiative to the Pyongyang-directed "pan-national anti-nuclear movement" for the denuclearizatio...
