North Korea’s Restraint Could Signal New Policy

North Korea had vowed retaliation if South Korea went ahead with its planned live-fire drills on Yeonpyeong Island, where a North Korean artillery barrage last month killed two South Korean soldiers and two civilians. But when the South defied those threats and held a 94-minute drill on Monday, the North’s official news agency reversed itself by saying it was “not worth reacting” to the exercise.

Political analysts could only speculate about the sudden change in tone by North Korea, one of the world’s most closed and secretive societies. They said that a visit to North Korea by an unofficial American envoy, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, that came at the same time may have helped. Indeed, the North seemed to offer Mr. Richardson an olive branch by its willingness to allow United Nations inspectors back in to monitor its nuclear program.

Most political analysts in Seoul said the most likely scenario was that the North had decided to bide its time while waiting to see whether its attack last month would pressure South Korea and the United States into talks, and possibly even concessions. They said this was a recurring pattern in the North’s unique brand of brinkmanship: making a provocation in hopes of forcing the other side to the bargaining table.

Despite North Korea’s propaganda of proud independence, Korea watchers noted that it is desperate to obtain food aid from the South, especially with the hard winter months ahead, and possibly even win security guarantees from Washington as the North’s ailing dictator, Kim Jong-il, tries to engineer the succession of his youngest and untested third son, Kim Jong-un.

“North Korea was thinking very strategically,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “I think they are trying to create the mood for dialogue.”

South Korea had defiantly pushed forward with the drills, despite warnings that they might cause an escalation, and calls by China and Russia to cancel them. By refusing to bite at what appeared to be a military challenge by the South, the North was perhaps hoping to cast itself as the more reasonable of the two Koreas, particularly to its traditional backers in Beijing and Moscow, some analysts said.

They also suggested the North might be trying to repair its image among the South Korean public, which reacted with outrage to the civilian deaths on Yeonpyeong. Some analysts said the North plays a sometimes sophisticated game of wooing public opinion in the South, particularly on the left, aimed at winning support for economic aid and other engagement policies.

“The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war,” the North’s news agency said on Monday.

Still, it is unclear how much success the North’s strategy will have, particularly in bringing its opponents to the bargaining table. The United States has refused to engage in bilateral talks with the North, insisting that all dialogue take place within the six-party process that also includes China, Japan, Russia and the South. But Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have also rejected recent calls by the other three nations for an emergency restart of the six-party talks without signs that the North is willing to dismantle its nuclear program, something the North appears unwilling to do.

However, if the North feels that South Korea and the United States are still giving it the cold shoulder, then it could well strike again, most likely by finding some new weak point in South Korea’s defenses. Analysts said the response is almost certain to be asymmetric — unpredictable, unconventional, unexpected.

This was the case in last month’s shelling, which South Korean security officials admitted surprised them because they had not expected an attack on civilian areas. “Their provocations are beyond our imaginations,” said Gen. Han Min-koo, chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Analysts say these provocations reflect the increasing desperation of the communist North, which needs the resumption of aid shipments from the wealthier, capitalist South to prop up its impoverished state-run economy. In late October, Seoul rejected a request by Pyongyang for 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer. Aid groups have estimated that the North’s own grain production this year appeared to fall a million tons short of what it needs to feed its 24 million people.

South Korean aid has trickled nearly to a halt under President Lee Myung-bak, who came to power nearly three years ago with the demand that the North reciprocate by ending its nuclear weapons program. North Korea angrily refused, and began a series of provocations that included the sinking in March of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors (for which the North has denied responsibility), last month’s lethal shelling of Yeonpyeong, and the recent revelation of an expanded uranium-enrichment program at its Yongbyon complex.Some analysts said the North also seeks a peace treaty with the United States that would recognize the Kim family government’s right to exist. Neither the United States nor the two Koreas signed a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which came to a halt in with a cease-fire.

“North Korea has specific reasons for negotiations, and Kim Jong-il is seeking the end of hostilities with the United States, recognition of his government and the survival of his regime,” said Chung Dong-young, an opposition lawmaker who, as the former unification minister, negotiated directly with the North Korean leader in 2005.“The Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island changed public opinion,” said Song Dae-sung, president of the Sejong Institute, a private research group. “The people want a harder line toward North Korea.”