Keeping N. Korea on Westward Path : Asia: One year after his demigod father’s death, mysterious Kim Jong Il seems committed to opening relations with the outside world, analysts say.

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il assumed control of his isolated Communist country last year, the world braced for the worst from a mysterious man accused of terrorist plots, bizarre behavior and vicious ideological warfare.

But Saturday he marked the one-year anniversary of his rule--and of the death of the national demigod, his revered father, Kim Il Sung--and analysts say he has kept North Korea remarkably on track on what may be an irreversible path to more open relations with the West.

Pressed by a mounting economic crisis, North Korea recently compromised its famed juche philosophy of self-reliance and accepted historic shipments of emergency rice from South Korea and Japan. Earlier, officials agreed to freeze a nuclear program suspected of including weapons production in exchange for desperately needed shipments of heavy oil and for light-water nuclear reactors financed by the United States, South Korea and Japan.

Last month, the normally reclusive Kim, 53, even spent 20 hours over five days with a group of Japanese and Western business executives, asking them for lessons on capitalism, according to the Japanese magazine Shukan Gendai.

“This is not a choice. They’ve been forced to shift the gravity of their relations from Moscow and Beijing to Washington and Tokyo for their own survival,” said Jeong Woo Kil, a senior fellow with the Research Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “They’re looking at who has the money to help them get out of their diplomatic isolation and economic difficulties.”

Others say that Kim and more hard-line North Korean leaders may not necessarily believe in the current direction--but that they dare not challenge it because it was laid down by the elder Kim as a way to arrest the nation’s rapid decline.

After Russia and China reduced their aid and began demanding hard-currency payments instead of barter trade in the early 1990s, the North Korean economy went into a tailspin. Last year, it contracted for the fifth year in a row, with a drop in foreign trade and deepening shortages of raw materials and energy, the Bank of Korea in Seoul recently reported. Trade volume in 1994 plunged to half the levels of 1990, and per-capita annual income stalled at $923, compared to $8,483 for South Koreans, the bank reported.

Starvation was said to have begun sweeping the nation, reducing many people to one daily meal of gruel and tree bark. Food riots reportedly began breaking out, and thousands of people are believed to have tried to flee the country. Some of those captured were executed, according to press reports.

North Korea’s military power has also been eroding rapidly, as the deteriorating economy and loss of sponsorship from China and Russia have left it unable to replace old weapons and damaged its ability to maintain its ships and planes, Gen. Gary E. Luck, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, testified in January.

As crises mounted in the last years of his life, the elder Kim realized he had to secure a smooth succession for his son, analysts say.

In December, 1993, North Korean officials admitted the failure of their seven-year economic plan at top meetings of the ruling party’s Central Committee and of the Supreme People’s Assembly, and a new policy was proclaimed in the name of Kim Il Sung by Prime Minister Kang Song San. Two days before his death on July 8, 1994, the senior Kim made a video announcing the policy to make foreign trade, light industry and agriculture the nation’s three top priorities.

The policy represented a course correction from the previous emphasis on heavy industry and self-reliance--and economic bureaucrats, such as Kang, made sure the Kim video was broadcast over and over, said Tsutomu Nishioka, editor of Gendai Korea, an authoritative journal on North Korea published in Japan.

“The economic bureaucrats trust this new direction by Kim Il Sung and know the country will decline unless it is followed,” Nishioka said. “They are trying to stick to it by using the father’s name.”

Also last year, the senior Kim, who was 82 when he died, took decisive steps to resolve the nuclear dispute pitting North Korea against the United States and its allies by pledging to compromise in a meeting with former President Jimmy Carter in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. He realized, analysts say, that the key to North Korea’s economic salvation was the United States--without which Japan and other nations would not cooperate.

Analysts say the elder Kim’s longtime intent is also reflected in North Korea’s current moves to force peace negotiations with the United States by progressively weakening the armistice agreement governing the truce that halted the 1950-53 Korean War.

While some military analysts see the moves as ominous--in recent months, North Korea has booted Polish and Czech observers from its side of the demilitarized zone--others say it merely reflects Pyongyang’s growing desperation to secure its existence with a permanent peace treaty.

Even if they wanted to, North Koreans today do not have the status or power to challenge the direction laid down by the senior Kim. And that guarantees, at least for now, that it will not change, analysts here say.

“Whether Kim Jong Il has succeeded in consolidating power or not doesn’t make a big difference in North Korea,” said Rhee Sang Woo, a Sogang University professor who has served as a close adviser on North Korea to South Korean President Kim Young Sam. “If he fails, someone else will take over and continue the same situation of governing North Korea in the name of Kim Il Sung.”

Speculation has focused on whether the younger Kim--officially designated as successor in 1986--will assume the remaining two titles his father held of president and party secretary general in addition to his current title of supreme commander of the military.

On Saturday, Kim, appearing on live television, snipped a thick red ribbon to inaugurate the memorial hall where his father’s body lies in state. With that milestone in the nation’s mourning process complete, Kim may soon move to seize the remaining titles. But Rhee and others say it doesn’t much matter, since Pyongyang image-makers already are fusing the identities of father and son.

Previously known as Dear Leader, the younger Kim now carries the same Great Leader title his father held. In recent rallies, Rhee said, he has been portrayed as the incarnation of his father.

Some analysts say the reclusive Kim may not want the presidential position, since it would require frequent meetings with foreign dignitaries. Others speculate that he may not be eager to assume the responsibility for all three positions during a delicate transition period in which North Korea is striking into unknown terrain with nations long reviled as imperialistic enemies.

Still others say that Kim has not taken the titles out of deference to his father and the mourning period, which may last three years or longer.

But Nishioka and others believe Kim is being blocked from exercising full power by elder party members skeptical of his leadership abilities.

There is no evidence that Kim faces a serious challenge to his authority, but “there is a sense of insecurity shared by many cadres about his leadership style,” said Lee Dong Bok, a former negotiator for South Korea with the North.

Since the Great Leader himself named his son as his successor, the most opponents can do for now is seek to check his power, analysts say. In one indication of such checks, rivals within his family reportedly have been somewhat rehabilitated. His stepmother, Kim Song Ae, has begun to appear in official photos after a 16-year lapse, and his uncle, Kim Yong Ju, was made a state vice president in 1993--apparently with the senior Kim’s approval.

Both relatives dropped from view for nearly two decades after losing a power struggle to the junior Kim, said Gendai Korea’s Nishioka.

Chinese reporters in Seoul have twice reported that the uncle would be made president--possibly reflecting China’s desire as well for a check on Kim Jong Il, Nishioka said.

Unlike his charismatic father, Kim apparently inspires neither awe nor trust. His legacies as a de facto national leader during the declining years of Kim Il Sung have hardly strengthened the nation: an international youth festival in 1989 that cost the strapped government huge sums, numerous costly public monuments in Pyongyang and elsewhere, and alleged terrorist plots, such as the 1987 midair bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed all 115 people aboard.

And some analysts believe that Kim remains an unreformed isolationist. In November, he authored an essay declaring that “Socialism is science” and emphasizing self-sufficiency rather than trade, which he feared would lead to foreign control. The essay’s tone “contradicted his father’s policy in a subtle way” and raised questions about whether he is truly committed to it, Nishioka said.

On his own, Kim has initiated only two new programs, Nishioka said: an international wrestling match in April and plans for a new monument.

He reportedly told foreign visitors, however, that he constantly makes key decisions via car phone as he tours farms and factories, according to the Shukan Gendai.

He also complained that he is a “bird in a cage” discouraged by meddlesome aides from favorite pastimes ranging from fishing to smoking and drinking. And he apologized for what he called rumors of his terrorism, womanizing and wearing elevator shoes to boost his height, saying, “I am solely to blame,” the magazine reported.

Whether Kim is in charge or not, much of the nation’s business has come to a standstill, analysts say. Neither the party Central Committee nor the Supreme People’s Assembly has been convened in the year since Kim’s death. No budget has been adopted. Key personnel decisions have not been made, such as a replacement for Defense Minister Oh Jin U, who recently died of cancer.

“They are, for the time being, just muddling through,” Lee said.

Jeong of the Research Institute for National Unification said the uncertain nation should be encouraged to stay on its track of increased interchange, including a private channel for discussions with U.S. military leaders.

“This is a very fragile coalition in Pyongyang to move in this direction, so we should be very careful to let them feel their choice was right,” Jeong said. “What we can do with the policy of engagement is to lead North Korea to cross the bridge of no return.”