It hasn’t received much attention yet, but new South Korean president Lee Myung-bak has thrown some cold water on the “sunshine policy” of his predecessors. This policy, arguing for peaceful co-operation with the north, really amounted to subsidizing North Korea in the hope of averting its collapse. (Never mind the untold suffering inflicted by Kim Jong-Il on his subjects.)

Lee is making further aid conditional on North Korea’s willingness to give up its nuclear program and to improve human rights. This has brought a predictable hissy-fit from Pyongyang. As this New York Times article notes, the North is calling Lee a “traitor” and a “U.S. sycophant” and warning: “The Lee regime will be held fully accountable for the irrevocable catastrophic consequences to be entailed.”

Lee should take it as a badge of honor that he is on the receiving end of name-calling from the vilest ruler on the planet. His predecessors have nothing to be proud of, considering that, as the Times puts it, this “outburst was the first time in eight years the North had insulted a South Korean president.” The only way to affect substantial change in the North—if such change is possible at all—is to end the subsidies that have underpinned the regime. Those come primarily from China and South Korea. Beijing has shown no willingness so far to change its support for a fellow communist dictatorship, but the change from Seoul could be significant. It is more likely to bear fruit than the nuclear accord negotiated by the Bush administration, which the North has so far refused to implement.