The late Roh Moo Hyun claimed in his posthumous memoirs, \u201cSuccess and Frustration,\u201d that, \u201cChairman Kim Jong Il is a person I can speak with, and the most flexible person I met in North Korea. The others looked so stiff.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went on, \u201cChairman Kim was the only man who talked straight. What surprised me was that he was precisely aware of the affairs of state. When we talked about reform and opening, he expressed very clearly and reasonably his own logic and conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who have met Kim Jong Il, including another former President, the late Kim Dae Jung, National Assembly lawmaker Park Geun Hye and former Minister of Unification Jung Dong Young, unanimously agree; Kim Jong Il is someone rational who can be reasoned with. <\/p>\n
Hwang Jang Yop, the former Secretary of the International Department of the Workers\u2019 Party, once recalled, \u201cKim Il Sung told me, \u2018Jong Il\u2019s people skills are much better than mine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
No wonder he is so good at the art of living, though, for he has been the leader for the last 35 years! A politician who is unreasonable or irrational to those he has to persuade in order to lead the situation in his chosen direction is unlikely to get very far.<\/p>\n
Kim Jong Il has been dealing with guidance and propaganda for a long time. Additionally, for almost 40 years, he has been labeled the wisest, most benevolent, most generous leader, a general sent down from heaven and the true sun of the 21st century. If one listens to a lie for 40 years, it is natural for the lie to sound truthful in the end. <\/p>\n
But why do South Korean politicians harbor these illusions about Kim Jong Il after they meet with him, although they know very well about North Korean idolatry and propaganda? <\/p>\n
First, South Korean politicians do not know that they are not acquainted with Kim Jong Il, and they believe that Kim Jong Il does not know them. <\/p>\n
South Korean politicians presume that Kim Jong Il does not know about the outside world because North Korea is a closed society. However, Kim Jong Il sees very well. Upper-level cadres know comparatively well about the world, too. The Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Workers\u2019 Party issues the so-called \u201cReference Newspaper\u201d for officials in order to share information on South Korea and other foreign countries, information which is not contained in the Rodong Shinmun or broadcast on television.<\/p>\n
During the first Inter-Korean Summit of 2000, when Kim Jong Il mentioned the South Korean movie \u201cChunHyang\u201d (1999, Im Kwon Taek), the South Korean press were surprised. The level of awareness of many politicians in the U.S. and South Korea may not be much better than that. <\/p>\n
So, when international figures visit North Korea, they tend to be surprised at how well North Korean officials know the South Korean and the world situations. <\/p>\n
The truth is that Kim Jong Il and his cohorts knows very well the ways of U.S. and South Korean policymaking, and Kim has equipped himself with the knowledge to dismantle his counterparts\u2019 North Korea policies. World politicians apparently do not do their research nearly so well. <\/p>\n
Second, people are fundamentally ignorant about the North Korean dictatorship. <\/p>\n
If former President Roh he known even the most basic elements of the North Korean system, Kim\u2019s flexibility would have seemed very natural to him. <\/p>\n
In reality, there is only one person who is guaranteed absolute freedom in North Korea, and that is General Kim Jong Il. Everyone else has to follow his orders, often on pain of death.<\/p>\n
Here is an example which shows the reality. <\/p>\n
When an official submits a proposal to Kim Jong Il, no matter how infeasible it is, the project will be given the utmost priority as long as Kim Jong Il signs it. And vice versa, of course. Therefore, regardless of the results of the project, the official will not bear any responsibility for the result. Additionally, Kim Jong Il does not need to bear any responsibility either, since no one is allowed to blame him. <\/p>\n
He has eternal authority and is completely free of responsibility. <\/p>\n
So, Kim Jong Il knows the U.S. and South Korea far better than we expect, and has the authority to do precisely as he wishes, without the hindrance of voters or adverse public opinion. It is for these reasons that, despite international monitoring for the last 18 years, he has continued to win the nuclear game with the world.<\/p>\n
And so to the present day, on the 21st, President Lee Myung Bak put forward the idea of a \u201cGrand Bargain.\u201d According to a Blue House report, it is a one-shot deal to replace the step-by-step negotiations of the past which have achieved so little. <\/p>\n
For any policy to succeed, it is critical that North Korea policy should include maintaining U.N. sanctions until North Korea really acts on denuclearization. <\/p>\n
To which end, if both sides want to get what they want from North Korea, they have to see through Kim Jong Il\u2019s strategy even more clearly than he sees through ours, and much more clearly than they have done so far.<\/p>\n
(Roh Moo Hyun\u2019s memoirs are published by Hakgojae)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The late Roh Moo Hyun claimed in his posthumous memoirs, \u201cSuccess and Frustration,\u201d that, \u201cChairman Kim Jong Il is a person I can speak with, and the most flexible person I met in North Korea. The others looked so stiff.\u201d He went on, \u201cChairman Kim was the only man who talked straight. What surprised me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":10048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n