A weak hand in Korea

SEVERAL THINGS have happened this week that illuminate the errors of President Bush's policy toward North Korea.

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Pyongyang said Wednesday it has removed 8,000 fuel rods from its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, a move that could make possible the reprocessing of enough plutonium to produce two or three more nuclear weapons beyond the seven or eight that might be produced from previously extracted fuel rods. At about the same time, Chinese officials said Beijing will not accede to any effort to impose sanctions on the North. A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry said: ''The normal trade flow should not be linked up with the nuclear issue. We oppose trying to address the problem through strong-arm tactics."

North Korea's announcement about the fuel rods told Bush that his refusal to place a credible negotiating offer on the table has only served to enlarge the quantity of processed plutonium that the North could use to produce nuclear warheads.

Beijing was warning that Bush has no realistic sanctions option. Since China is the North's key source for food and fuel, and since the North's trade with China, South Korea, and Russia has grown substantially in the past two years, Beijing's refusal to use economic penalties against Pyongyang effectively deprives Bush of any significant nonmilitary means to compel the North to accept Washington's terms for resolving the nuclear issue. And the military option is, for all practical purposes, unthinkable.

These developments indicate that Bush must seek a genuine bargain with the North. Moreover, the unfolding diplomacy of northeast Asia makes it clear that, the longer Bush refuses to heed the advice of allies to make Pyongyang an acceptable offer, the more harm is done to the American position in Asia.

Much as they want to have a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, both South Korea and China are equally fearful of the cataclysmic effects of another Korean war or of North Korea's collapse. They fear instability above all. Their interest is in having the United States meet the North's terms for a freeze and eventual dismantling of its nuclear weapons program -- a US guarantee to respect North Korea's sovereignty and security, economic benefits, and eventual normalization of relations.

These are reasonable terms. If Bush does not succeed in cutting a deal to take nuclear weapons away from North Korea, America will be blamed by its Asian allies for being an incompetent protector of their interests. Those allies and clients will then make their own security arrangements for an Asia that no longer relies on the United States to preserve a stable balance of power.