Seoul, South Korea - North Korea's announcement of a successful underground nuclear test may be the beginning of the end for Kim Jong Il's brinkmanship diplomacy. Now that he has expended the only powerful card in his hand to blackmail the United States, Japan and South Korea into accepting his demand for bilateral talks with Washington, he has no more tools left to intimidate the outside world.
It's already becoming clear that Kim will be paying a high price for his gambit: President Roh Moo Hyun has come under an almost unbearable pressure to review -- and possibly end -- his policy of engagement and reconciliation with the North. This means he will stop cash flow to the Pyongyang regime. Japan is crafting a new resolution for the Security Council calling for tougher sanctions closing all trade with the North and all financial remittances. It has forced Seoul to work more closely with Tokyo putting joint pressure on Pyongyang, while China has been massively embarrassed so that it will now respond more against the North.
On top of this, the nomination of Seoul's foreign minister Ban Ki Moon as the next Secretary General of the United Nations will help make the North's nuclear challenge a top agenda. But the problem facing the U.S. is that, with its hands tied in the war against terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has no way of penalizing the North other than by economic sanctions and political isolation. And the North has already proven that it can resist both of these punishments. China alone, as the only source of survival for the North, has the leverage to influence Pyongyang's course. But the big question is: will it use this leverage for the West? The ball is now as much in Beijing's court as it is in Pyongyang's.
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