Frustrated with attempts to re-engage with the Bush administration, North Korea has reached out to alternative sources of support, sidestepping the United States for the moment by turning to Tokyo. Like a good boxer who knows how to bob and weave to elude his opponents and then land a telling blow, Pyongyang's diplomacy seeks largess at the lowest cost, again demonstrating an ability to use foreign powers to its own advantage.
Paradoxically, the U.S., the power with the most at stake and in the strongest position to influence developments on the Korean Peninsula, has moved to the back of the pack under Bush's strident brand of "axis of evil" diplomacy while the two weakest players politically -- Russia and Japan -- have moved to the front rank diplomatically.
In the latest round of Great Power Korean diplomacy, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is set to journey to Pyongyang on Tuesday, catapulting Tokyo into the forefront of inter-Korean diplomacy for the first time since World War II, an historic development whose significance should not be minimized.