---

China should pressure
N. Korea back to table

THE ISSUE North Korea has declared for the first time publicly that it has nuclear weapons.

NORTH Korea's admission -- or boast -- that it is a nuclear power was made with its announced withdrawal from six-nation nonproliferation negotiations, but those talks should resume in time. China no longer can doubt Pyongyang's possession of nuclear weapons without casting the statement as a bluff. Beijing's pressure should bring North Korea back to the table and lead eventually to resolution of nuclear issues.

The North Korean foreign ministry statement might well have been a bluff. The Bush administration's accusation that the North has been seeking to enrich uranium to weapons grade is met with skepticism within the intelligence network. Doubters maintain that it lacks the energy and equipment to produce weapons-grade uranium.

China has been among the doubters, contending that it has been unclear whether North Korea has developed nuclear weapons. In a statement following the Pyongyang declaration, the Chinese foreign ministry's chief spokesman said it hoped the six-party talks with North Korea would continue, but made no mention of the North's claim to be a nuclear power.

The hexagonal talks broke off in June but were expected to resume soon. Two groups of American congressmen who visited Pyongyang in January said North Korean officials had hinted of an imminent return to the table. Only hours before the Pyongyang statement, a top Bush administration official said all other participants -- the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia and China -- anticipated North Korea's return to the talks.

President Bush had even toned down his language of three years ago, including North Korea in the "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, and called for a diplomatic solution of the nuclear issue. However, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's confirmation-hearings inclusion of North Korea among six dictatorial "outposts of tyranny" was pounced upon in the Pyongyang statement as a reflection of hostile U.S. policy.

The statement said Rice's comment meant the Bush administration is escalating "its policy to isolate and stifle" North Korea. That policy, it said, "compels us to take a measure to bolster our nuclear weapons arsenal in order to protect the ideology, system, freedom and democracy" of North Korea.

More relevant than Rice's statement was disclosure of evidence that North Korea had provided Libya with several tons of a uranium compound to be enriched for use in nuclear bombs. Libya gave the compound to the United States last year, and Michael Green, senior director for Asia of the National Security Council, presented top Chinese officials on Feb. 1-2 with American intelligence showing that the compound had been produced in North Korea.

Having been shown to have provided the uranium to Libya, North Korea now can insist that its weapons program is a necessary deterrent to a pre-emptive American attack. China should reject such a lame explanation and exert pressure as North Korea's chief supplier of energy and other goods to force it back to the table.