SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va., Oct. 4 (UPI) -- A prominent U.S. scholar of Korean studies says President Bush is "misleading" on North Korea and bilateral talks could help contain a nuclear threat.
"The minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind. It will mean that China no longer is involved in convincing, along with us, for Kim Jong Il to get rid of his weapons," Bush said during the first presidential debate Thursday with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
But Hang Yul Rhee, the chairman of the board of directors of the International Council on Korean Studies and a professor of international relations at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va., contends Bush is mischaracterizing China's role in the developing crisis in East Asia.
Bush "made it sound like China is helping us" against North Korea. "I think the president was misleading in that sense ... thinking China is on our side, that's a kind of fantasy, actually," Rhee told the Charleston Gazette.
"South Korea, Japan and China keep asking us to have more contact with North Korea. We are kind of a reluctant party even in the six-party talks.
"When I visited North Korea, it was a country on the verge of economic collapse. It was an economic basket case. If they're pushed against the wall, they could have a mutual destruction mentality: I die, you die," Rhee said, adding Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry's plan to disarm North Korea through direct talks is more likely to succeed.
