"Kim Jong-il Not Interested in Chinese-Style Opening "

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is not as interested in a Chinese-style door opening as he is in a Thailand-style model where a King still maintains his regal power while the country develops its economy substantially, Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State (66), noted in her memoir.

Albright, who visited North Korea twice in October 2000 at the end of the Clinton Administration, made the comments in her memoir which will soon be released, the monthly magazine Vanity Fair disclosed Saturday.

“Kim Jong-il does not want western-style door opening. He will only open the country in a way that does not harm the North Korean way of tradition,” Albright said.

“Mr. Kim is not interested in a Chinese-style opening where the market economy is mixed with socialism, but in firmly maintaining traditional regality, using Thailand as his role model where the king has succeeded in maintaining independence and developing the economy,” Albright added.

“If both North Korea and the United States frankly talk to each other, every obstacle will be cleared through negotiations. Thus, trust between North Korea and the United States is necessary,” Kim Jong-il is quoted as saying in her memoir.

Albright once mentioned that “Kim Jong-il believes that the U.S. forces now contribute to the stability of the Korean Peninsula, unlike in the Cold War era.”

“North Korea is not a country that would collapse in a matter of a moment as the Bush administration believes. In order to resolve the North Korean nuclear weapons crisis, the U.S. must earnestly start negotiations with North Korea, like it did in 1994,” Albright advised.

“President Clinton tried to visit North Korea at the end of his tenure to resolve the North`s missile issues. His visit could not be realized, however, as Middle East peace negotiations came to a deadlock. Instead, Clinton invited Kim Jong-il to visit the U.S., but Kim declined,” Albright revealed.

“Kim Jong-il watches newly released movies once every 10 days and particularly loves Academy Award-winning films. There are hundreds of thousands of computers in North Korea and Kim also uses three computers to surf the Internet,” the former secretary of state went on to add in her book.

maypole@donga.com