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By Lee Byong-chul
Public discussions related to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il are controlled within North Korea. There are very few who get access to his life and little is known about him both inside and especially outside North Korea's borders.
Kim's sphere of activity is useful to provide some crude view of the closed society.
When Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who was favored to succeed President Hu Jintao, asked Kim to attend the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games while visiting Pyongyang, the South Korean government was silent, but soon began to analyze the possibility.
Kim might join the group of world leaders, since he may estimate that his appearance at the world sports feast and China-mediated talks with U.S. President George W. Bush could generate the atmosphere and dramatic momentum needed to terminate the communist state's diplomatic isolation.
In addition, a short encounter of Kim with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda could lead to direct talks. In other words, it would mean that North Korea would no longer be alone in the world and that any decision Kim makes toward reform and openness will certainly save North Koreans from famine.
Many North Korea experts here in Seoul point out however that Kim, aged 68, is unlikely to make such a high-risk political and diplomatic gambit due to his paranoia regarding security. Their analysis might be correct.
Kim's last official overseas trip was in January 2006, when he visited China under tight surveillance. In September 2004, there was a massive explosion in Yongcheon, Ryanggang Province, North Korea's border with China.
Kim narrowly escaped when his train passed through the border village just hours before the explosion blew away the railroad station and nearby buildings. Whatever the cause, it's not difficult to assume that since then Kim has felt more threatened by the possibility of assassination.
Much has changed since the two inter-Korean summits under the Kim Dae-jung and the Roh Moo-hyun governments, respectively.
In particular, the overwhelming majority of South Koreans chose a conservative leader for the first time in a decade. But a basic truism holds: When the two Koreas work at cross purposes, as in the shooting of a South Korean tourist at Mt. Geumgang, diplomatic tension ensues. However, when they work together good things can happen.
No better symbolic event for this exists than the Beijing Olympic Games next month, which is why Kim Jong-il should make an appearance and help people around the world believe he is not a `war-monger.'
I am convinced that Kim would be well received if he waves to spectators at the opening ceremony broadcast to billions of television viewers around the world. Again, he can come to the attention of the world in Beijing, as he did in the previous inter-Korean summit talks in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
More than anything else, joining a host of world leaders at the Olympics would be a good starting point for both Kim and his regime. Kim's `appearance money' could be offered in one way or another.
There was a report that the Bush administration was considering establishing a representative office in Teheran for the first time since the 1979 revolution, led by the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, and the hostage crisis of Teheran-based U.S. Embassy personnel.
And U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to meet her North Korean counterpart Park Ui-chun for the first time in Singapore on Thursday (July 24) on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum.
For the present, the probability of Kim's appearance in the Aug. 8 ceremony seems to be multi-layered and complex but both China and North Korea are likely to continue to consider it.
The success of the games can guarantee the hallmark of a longer political stability. In this regard, whether to `bring' Kim Jong-il to Beijing is a litmus test for Chinese President Hu Jintao's leadership in taking advantage of the Olympics as a venue for the peace of all mankind.
Kim's participation is likely to provide a point of departure for upgrading the relationship between China and North Korea, reflecting a shift in China's North Korea policy from Beijing's leverage as a balancer on the Korean Peninsula to a proactive ally in the rapidly changing Northeast Asia politics.
The North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop recently said, ``The most frightening prospect is not that North Korea will collapse. What I fear most is that Kim Jong-il will bow down to China to get the help he needs, and North Korea will slip into Chinese orbit.''
Now I have no idea whether Kim is going to show up at the opening ceremony, because North Korea has already announced that Kim Young-nam, the chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, would participate.
I would have thought it would be in the Chinese political leaders' interest for the Olympics to be an eye-catching event, reflecting its growing geopolitical influence.
Obviously, the Chinese leadership wants to show the world that the Beijing of today is not what it was 19 years ago when over 100,000 young students gathered in Tiananmen Square to protest against the world's largest autocratic regime.
Though Kim Jong-il's R.S.V.P. has not yet been confirmed his presence will surely send a strong signal to the world that Pyongyang is ready to accept proposals seriously.
Lee Byong-chul is senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation (IPC), a nonpartisan policy advisory body based in Seoul. He can be reached at bcleebc@gmail.com.
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