sourceRather than help the U.S., the APEC summit showed how Pyongyang has driven a wedge between Washington and its traditional ally South Korea.
Five years ago, the Presidents and prime ministers of the 21 countries that make up the forum for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathered for the first time in the shadow of the war on terror. The host city back then was Shanghai, and the Chinese had hoped the APEC summit would be a historic coming out party for the gleaming symbol of their reignited capitalist fervor. Given the timing — two months after September 11, 2001— it didn't quite work out like that.
President Bush just left the latest APEC meeting, this one held in another one-party Communist country — Vietnam — hoping to impress the world with its own recent embrace of capitalism. And once again, five years on, it was the war on terror, and its consequences, that sucked the oxygen out of the conference rooms. In fact, what people may remember most about this APEC meeting is that it became painfully obvious just how successful Kim Jong Il — charter member of the "axis of evil" — has been at driving a wedge between the United States and its ostensible ally in Seoul.
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