LOS ANGELES -- Probably the great foreign fear that overhangs the Japanese -- and in some respects is more fearsome than their near-moribund economy -- is the looming dark presence of North Korea.
After that dictatorial government launched an unarmed missile over Japan's head more than two years ago, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung became the most popular Korean politician in Japanese memory -- mostly because of his unflagging efforts to defang that neo-Stalinist cobra. But Kim, whose term ends next year, is running out of time to realize the dream of a more peaceful peninsula through patient negotiation with the paranoid Pyongyang gang.
Moreover, it's now obvious he can't do it alone -- and that U.S. President George W. Bush (who takes a dim view of the whole process) isn't going to be much help. To whom can Kim turn now? Russia, perhaps, but the government of President Vladimir Putin has many other worries. Japan? Hardly; Japanese diplomacy is generally as engaging as cold pizza.