Asia Times: Suddenly, Kim is 'cute'


	June 10, 2000	atimes.com

The Koreas

Suddenly, Kim is 'cute'
By Ahn Mi-young

SEOUL - These days, one of the hottest-selling items in downtown Seoul department stores is a caricature of a friendly-looking Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader.

''Doesn't he look so cute?,'' said Lee Sung-min, 15. ''I bought it because it is fun to see him in such a different way.''

A few days before the historic inter-Korea summit, North Korea's Kim is undergoing an image change, from frowning personality and irrational ''spoilt boy'' to reasonable leader suitable for taking part in a bilateral summit. In line with this, many South Koreans are waxing emotional about the potential for peace between the two Koreas and ties between their people, which continue despite the division of the peninsula.

For instance, South Koreans watching a troupe of some 30 boys and girls from Pyongyang singing and dancing at the Art Center in Seoul on May 31 were in awe, joy and tears throughout the performance. ''These children are so beautiful and marvelously talented that I would like to raise, hug and kiss every one of them,'' said 55-year-old Kim Mi-ryong, who was in the audience. The tears that accompanied the troupe's performance reflect what appears to be a totally new way that South Koreans see people from the North, whom they have confronted with either horror, outrage and despair for the past five decades.

The warmer atmosphere has emerged on the eve of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's flight to Pyongyang for the summit with Kim Jong-il, along with a 130-member South Korean delegation, a 50-person press corps and 20 business and civic leaders.

Reconciliation, exchanges and peace were set out as the three principles of the summit that both Koreas have agreed to hold on a continuing basis, a fact that experts say represents a major warming of ties. ''Don't expect too much from the summit,'' said Lee Jong-sok, a research fellow of Sejong Research Institute. ''But the meeting itself [between the two leaders] counts, as both leaders can talk to each other and agree to stop hating each other.''

The need for economic aid, since 1995, to feed North Korea's 22 million people is thought to have brought Pyongyang into the summit with the South. In these past few years of crisis, South Korea may have emerged as the most reliable partner to help the North, as Pyongyang's continued lack of contact with the US and Japan has brought it only too little.

''Besides,'' says Kwon Man-han, professor of international regionalism at Kyonghee University, ''Kim Jong-il is now confident enough about his leadership in the communist nation to seek contact with the South.''

South Koreans have different reasons to cheer about the summit. ''I hope the summit would lead us to do more business with North Koreans,'' said Chung Sam-sik, president of Daebang Enterprise in Pusan. On May 16 in Beijing, the company signed an agreement with a North Korean trading company to set up a shoe factory in Pyongyang.

Meantime, the air of optimism is being felt in the market as well. Stock prices of the South Korean construction companies which can reconstruct North Korea's shabby infrastructure are rising, like those of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, LG Engineering and Construction, and Sambu Civil Engineering. ''It would take only five years before South Korean businessmen can do business in North Korea freely like they are doing in China,'' said Chung Mon-hon of the Hyundai Group.

Others hope for increased people-to-people exchanges. ''I hope the summit would lead South Koreans to travel North Korea freely,'' said a 28-year-old. Some 9,000 South Koreans visited the North in 1998-1999, compared to 2,500 who officially visited North Korea between 1953 and 1997, according to the Ministry of Unification. For ordinary South Koreans, Hyundai's tourism cruises to scenic Mount Kumgang are the only way to visit North Korea, but they are denied casual access to North Koreans living around the scenic mountain.

A proposal for the reunion of families split between North and South is in fact central to President Kim Dae-jung's ''sunshine policy'' of engagement with Pyongyang, which led to next week's historic summit. ''Walking into my hometown in North Korea has been my lifetime dream,'' says 72-year-old Kim Kyong-shik.

A survey published in early June by a Seoul-based polling firm showed that 36.7 percent of the respondents wanted family reunions to top the agenda at the inter-Korea summit. This reflects the fact that millions of elderly family members are divided by the demilitarized zone.

Whatever their expectations of the summit, many South Koreans agree that what they want most is to live in greater security. Indeed, living without fear of war is at the top of South Koreans' lists of the good thing that reunification would bring, according to a survey. The same survey showed that for North Koreans, the benefit of reunification would be an improvement in living standards.

Analysts say that a major shift in inter-Korea ties will have to wait until after the summit, noting that the perceptions are that Kim Jong-il is showing some openness, as emphasized by his trip to China last month.

As for perceptions of the North Korean leader, ''we have such scanty information about who he is that we should neither stick to his negative image nor praise him suddenly as a 'rational competent leader','' said Kim Young-soo, professor of political science at Sogang University. Still, he says that Kim is no longer perceived as a puppet leader who would lead North Korea into collapse, as was believed when he assumed power from his father in 1994. At the same time, ''He is such a mystery leader that the summit will provide us with a rare opportunity to see what he is,'' Kim added.

''The summit may turn out to be nothing if we expect too much. Let's make our expectations modest,'' said Kyonghee University's Kwon.

(Inter Press Service)

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