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Kim shows true colour
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IN his trademark jump suit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had been seen by Westerners as a reclusive, hard-living playboy who throws tantrums until last year's historic summit with his South Korean counterpart Kim Dae-jung.
Now he further showed his true colour after revealing his intention of reforms inspired from a trip in China in mid-January.
He came, he saw and he confounded a multinational army of diplomats and journalists with his secrecy, but Kim's China tour spoke volumes about where he wants to take his country in 2001.
The focus of Kim's second clandestine visit to China in seven months on the commercial showcase city of Shanghai and his remarks to his hosts show he means business.
The Guangdong-based News Express quoted South Korean media reports as saying that Kim, after his China trip, revealed his intention to set up special economic zones in North Korea.
In his brief stay in Shanghai, the North Korean leader toured the stock exchange — built on what was farmland when he visited Shanghai in 1983 and China's reforms were on the drawing board.
Kim also toured General Motors' US$1.5 billion Buick factory and other flagship Sino-foreign joint ventures such as NEC Corp's US$1.2billion semiconductor factory.
Four days after Kim returned home, state radio and television continued to report on his visit almost hourly, with supportive comments from government and party leaders.
“This proves that North Korea is changing,” Kim Dae-jung said of the trip. “It appears to be trying to become a second China.”
Kim Jong-il has also become aggressive in dealing with the South. He has expressed his wish to visit the other part of the peninsula, in return for Kim Dae-jung's visit last year.
To Westerners, Kim Jong-il, officially the chairman of the National Defence Commission, is perhaps the weirdest leader in the world. He works in an impenetrable shadow of secrecy: The West knows almost nothing about what he does or how he does it.
Western media has long portayed him as a reclusive, hard-living playboy who has a taste in pornograhy. But that was changed when he stepped from the shadows to host a chummy summit in Pyongyang with Kim Dae-jung in June 2000.
For playing Prince Charming, Kim Dae-jung won last year's Nobel Peace Prize — but it was Kim Jong-il, described by the Time magazine as Nosferatu-turned-Cinderella, who was its choice for Asian Newsmaker of the Year 2000.
Four months after the summit, Kim allowed a visit from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who found him serious and authoritative in discussing critical issues.
According to Hwang Jang-yop, Kim's former mentor and the biggest heavyweight to have defected from North Korea, Kim is a clever man with a ruthless talent for staying on top.
Long groomed for leadership by his father, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il reportedly held the real power in North Korea even before the elder Kim died in 1994.
Kim Jong-il graduated from Namsan School in Pyongyang, a special school for the children of prominent revolutionaries and ranking party officials.
He later attended Kim Il-sung University and majored in Political economy, graduating in 1964.
He was reported to have studied in East Germany in an attempt to become a flyer, but upon his return home he worked closely with his father. He worked in the Organization and Guidance Department of the Communist Party and later managed the Ideological and Propaganda Department of the Party, where he was responsible for the production of many revolutionary plays extolling the anti-Japanese record of his father.
Kim gradually made his presence felt within the Party from the Seventh Plenum of the Fifth Central Committee in September 1973, leading the Three Revolution Team campaigns. By the time of the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980, his control of the Party operation was complete. When he
was elected member of the Seventh Supreme People's Assembly in February 1982, it had become obvious that he was heir apparent to succeed his father as the supreme leader of North Korea.
When Kim Il-sung died in 1994, Kim became North Korea's leader at the helm.(SD-Agencies)
Former 'recluse' plays the statesman
SOUTH Korea's intelligence agency had long painted Kim Jong-il as a world-class oddball and a reclusive binge drinker who pulled the strings behind deadly terrorist attacks.
So South Koreans were shocked when their president told a Japanese television
interviewer last year that “Kim [Jong-il] has a level of judgment, knowledge, and discernment befitting a [national] leader”. The comment was the beginning of a charm offensive and reappraisal of the North Korean.
A composed Kim Jong-il shattered his image as a reclusive oddball when he charmed everyone at last year's Korean summit, and Kim Dae-jung came off second best.
With his toned-down pompadour hairdo and dark glasses, the North Korean leader seemed utterly at ease as he stepped for the first time into the intense glare of the international spotlight at Pyongyang's airport to greet his southern counterpart.
As Kim Dae-jung slowly and stiffly walked down the steps of the presidential
plane, Kim Jong-il smiled. And once the South Korean President had reached the tarmac, he extended both hands in a gesture that symbolized the historic moment. The two men held hands for six seconds.
With tens of millions of people glued to their TV sets, it was as if Kim Jong-il was setting out to quash the rumours surrounding him.
Pyongyang's 58-year-old leader had only publicly met two leaders of foreign countries before the summit. In late May he travelled to Beijing and met President Jiang Zemin. That visit was also a landmark — it was the first time in 17 years he had been out of North Korea.
Kim Jong-il cut an image of the practised statesman. Standing with his stomach
uninhibitedly protruding from his plain khaki uniform, he frequently turned around to speak to a staffer and often lifted an arm to politely direct his 75-year-old guest.
“Kim Jong-il looked comfortable and confident,” said Paik Jin-hyun, professor of International Studies at Seoul National University.
He appeared natural and in control. During photo sessions at Baekhwawon State
Guest House, he directed events and arranged a variety of photo shoots. And in the limousine on the way to the guest house, the two men reportedly held hands in a further display of warmth and friendship.
Analysts said Kim Jong-il's composure and free expression confirmed reports he was more like his father, the late Kim Il-sung, than was previously supposed. Kim Il-sung was known for his charisma and has been respected by North Koreans as their “Great Leader”.(SD-Agencies)
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