KEY POINTS:
Long-stalled negotiations intended to induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons are due to resume in Beijing today.
Getting North Korea to return to the talks hosted by China has been an arduous exercise in diplomacy.
The prospects for any real progress appear bleak, even though Pyongyang
signed a joint statement in September last year promising to disarm in exchange for security guarantees and economic assistance.
Since then, North Korea has tested a nuclear explosive device and now appears to revel in its self-proclaimed status as an atomic power.
The other countries involved in the six-party talks - China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States - all agree that verifiable nuclear disarmament by Pyongyang would be the best outcome. But they differ over how to achieve this end.
The US and Japan want to squeeze North Korea with targeted trade and financial sanctions and measures to prevent it from selling nuclear materials and missiles overseas.
However, China, South Korea and Russia say diplomacy is the preferable way forward. Since they are North Korea's immediate neighbours, and China and South Korea are its main sources of trade, aid and investment, their policy approach is likely to prevail.
US President George Bush is in no position to protest too loudly. He is widely seen in Asia as a political lame duck after voters at home handed control of Congress to the Democrats in mid-term elections that repudiated the Bush Administration's muscular policies in Iraq and elsewhere.
This has probably helped China to lure its recalcitrant ally, North Korea, back to the negotiating table. But after unprecedented pressure from Beijing, all Pyongyang has agreed to do is rejoin the talks, not disarm.
North Korea wants US sanctions lifted as a first step, to be followed by direct bilateral negotiations with Washington.
Even a weakened Bush is unlikely to reward what he has long said is intolerable behaviour by Pyongyang.
The US has agreed to deal with North Korea only in a working group within the framework of the six-party talks. It has also made no commitments on ending sanctions.
So the stage is set for a continuing charade. North Korea can play for time while continuing to build more nuclear bombs and making them small enough to fit on its long-range missiles.
By agreeing to keep talking, Pyongyang will prevent the United Nations Security Council from effectively enforcing the sanctions resolution it passed after the North's nuclear test in October.
It will also keep a wedge between hardliners Japan and the US and the more conciliatory China, South Korea and Russia.
For Beijing and Seoul, the most desirable outcome for continued stability would be the Kim Jong-il regime minus nuclear arms. But if a choice has to be made, they will put stability ahead of non-proliferation.
They suspect the Bush Administration may still be seeking regime change in North Korea, through sanctions if not military intervention.
North Korea will not be the next Libya, which agreed three years ago to give up its ambitions for weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles in exchange for an end to international isolation.
Instead, Pyongyang believes it can follow the path blazed by India and Pakistan, which conducted nuclear tests outside the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, despite US sanctions. These have since been lifted.
Indeed, the US Congress has just approved a civilian nuclear deal with India even though New Delhi has not signed the treaty.
Sham negotiations with North Korea will avoid an immediate crisis that none of its five negotiating partners wants. China, Russia and South Korea want continued stability in their neighbourhood.
The US is bogged down too deeply in Iraq to risk an armed conflict in East Asia. For the time being at least, Japan must keep in step with its American ally. But the consequences of appeasing North Korea will be unpredictable and probably dangerous.
Iran will be emboldened to continue developing nuclear weapons. Other countries, including Japan, will follow, either by acquiring atomic arms or ensuring they can do so quickly.
In this world of multiplying nuclear states, preventing the spread of mass destruction materials and technology will become much more difficult.
As a result, the risk of a terrorist Armageddon will rise.
* Michael Richardson, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a security specialist at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.
