And, after countless delays in sending a top official to Washington, the North Korean leader dispatched Vice Marshal Jo, who is second only to Kim in the military hierarchy. Chuck Downs, a former aide to the House Republican Policy Committee and author of a book on North Korea, has argued that Albright and Clinton are rushing talks with North Korea to make their mark before leaving office. Negotiations with North Korea would be better left to the next president, Downs contends. But Clinton administration officials maintain they should seize the moment. Much of the country is mountainous.
Natural resources are more plentiful than in South Korea.
The economy suffered drastic declines in the 1990s, and a series of natural disasters reduced much of the country to starvation. Once an independent kingdom associated with China, Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. At the end of World War II, Soviet and U.S. troops set up occupation zones in the North and South respectively. Negotiations to establish a democratic, unified Korea failed, and in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the North and the Republic of Korea in the South. Under Kim Il Sung, the North set off the Korean War in June 1950 when it invaded the South.