LONDON — It is generally agreed that North Korea and Burma have the two most oppressive regimes in Asia. They rule over two of the poorest countries in the continent, and that is no coincidence whatever.

But there is one marked difference between them. No foreign leaders pay court to the Burmese generals in their weirdly grandiose new capital of Naypidaw (which makes even Brasilia seem cozy and intimate), whereas even Bill Clinton, the world's most recognizable celebrity statesman, makes the pilgrimage to Pyongyang.

Clinton was there to secure the release of two American journalists who were seized on the Chinese-North Korean border four months ago, probably with the explicit purpose of taking American hostages and forcing a high-level U.S. visit to the North Korean capital. That's why it was private citizen Bill, rather than his wife, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who made the visit to Kim Jong Il: The United States paid the Devil his due, but deniably.