[Focus] Will N. Korea ride on tide of change?

The recent China visit by North Korea leader Kim Jong-Il showed Kim¡¯s strong beliefs that ¡°North Korean should change in various aspects,¡± a South Korean government official said Sunday.

In particular, experts here evaluated that Kim, chairman of the National Defense Commission, virtually made a preliminary announcement of drastic changes in North Korea¡¯s policies in the future by terming the changes of Shanghai as ¡°cataclysmic changes.¡±

Chairman Kim expressed that he was greatly impressed after witnessing the development that Shanghai achieved through the grafting of ¡°political socialism and economic capitalism.¡± He previously visited the Chinese city in 1983.

The experts pointed out that North Korea¡¯s changes toward reform and openness already have started.

¡°North Korea has evaluated anew since the middle 1990s China¡¯s openness policy that it had regarded extremely negatively from a viewpoint of damaging the purity of socialism,¡± Researcher Lee Jong-Seok of Sejong Research Institute, an expert in North Korean affairs, said. ¡°There is a possibility that Chairman Kim¡¯s determination to reform and open in the Chinese style might bring about the introduction of a system centering economic fields and personnel reshuffle internally, and proposals for positive exchanges and cooperation to the South externally.¡±

Other experts speculated that another purpose for Chairman Kim¡¯s China visit was to stabilize the North¡¯s foreign relations. This is also a prerequisite to its reform and openness, but is interpreted as being intended to show the North¡¯s will toward changes to the new U.S. President George W. Bush administration, the analysts say.

¡°Cho Myong-Rok, chief of the General Political Bureau of the Ministry of People¡¯s Armed Forces, was excluded from Chairman Kim¡¯s entourage, taking into consideration the role he played for the improvement in North Korea-U.S. relations in October last year during his Washington visit,¡± Prof. Suh Dong-Man of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and Security said.

Dominant was an observation that Chairman Kim certainly would discuss with Chinese leaders during his visit about how to cope with the U.S. national missile defense system that the new Bush administration asserted it would push through. Under this situation, North Korea included Kim Young-Chun, chief of the General Staff of the People¡¯s Armed Forces, as a member of the entourage instead of Jo in order to show to the U.S. its will not to dilute the spirit of the North Korea-U.S. Joint Declaration, the experts said.

However, some experts also warned against an optimistic view that Chairman Kim¡¯s China trip would translate into rapid reform and openness.

¡°Kim¡¯s China visit this time might become an occasion to have him firmly believe that North Korea needs to undertake policy changes such as regional openness, but it seems not to be momentum to make any decision,¡± Dong Yong-Seung, senior researcher of the Samsung Economic Institute, said. ¡°From a mid-term basis, North Korea might stress Kaesong and the Rajin-Sunbong district and open in addition Nampo and Shinuiju, but it is not expected for the North to come up with a blueprint (for a total openness) right now.¡±