The U.S. clears the way for North Korean diplomats to participate in the Millennium Forum at the United Nations, but Washington doesn't make the extra effort to prevent an embarrassing body search of the diplomats at the Frankfurt airport. For its part, a cautious North Korea has also conducted its own hard bargaining. The chief failure of the Clinton administration has been its inability to construct a corollary policy supporting North-South engagement. By developing rockets of sufficient range to launch satellites into space, North Korea is pursuing several strategies at once. Satellites are a booming export industry and could prove more lucrative than North Korea's current missile sales.
Satellites can improve the country's communications and intelligence-gathering capacities.
Finally, long-range rockets capable of putting satellites into space, with considerable tinkering and testing, can also be turned into intercontinental ballistic missiles, the only North Korean product that seems to command attention from the United States. Yet Washington insists that rapprochement will not advance without a permanent freeze of North Korea's missile program. Kim Dae Jung, in contrast, did not insist that North Korea pull back its troops from the DMZ or dismantle its purported weapons of mass destruction before meeting with Kim Jong Il in June. The U.S. has to a certain extent separated politics from economics. It has, for example, sent North Korea an enormous amount of food aid.