The U.S. current events magazine Time placed on the cover of its latest edition an image of Kim Jong-il, dressed in a military uniform and smiling smugly, and ran as its cover story a piece entitled, "Why is This Man Smiling?"

Time wrote that about 50 years after the Korean War, the status quo written in the blood of 2.5 million victims is rapidly changing. It said that with a leftist-nationalist president and ruling party in charge of South Korea, changes in the attitudes of Japan, China and other surrounding countries toward North Korea, turmoil in the Korea-U.S. alliance, changes in the ideological education in South Korea, the strengthening of the determination of the North Korean regime in accordance with its nuclear development, and other regional trends blowing favorable to Pyongyang, Kim Jong-il has become stronger than ever.

Time said Kim's skill at manipulating the outside world has been surprising and consistently adept. He was quickly able to see that former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's adoption of the "Sunshine Policy" was due to fears of the tremendous price of unification should North Korea collapse.

Suddenly, South Korea took the position of wanting the same thing Kim Jong-il wanted most -- his own survival. This situation drove a wedge into the Korea-U.S. relationship, and brought about a tense bilateral relationship between the two allies with the U.S. doing things like reducing USFK because of its Global Posture Review. Citing Lee Dong Bok, a former top South Korean official who led negotiations with North Korea, Time said, "The winner is North Korea."

Showing how the alliance is far from healthy, Time pointed to the gulf between the U.S. and Korea in their evaluations of the North's nuclear program; U.S. officials believe the North possesses nuclear weapons, while South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon states that he "isn't sure" North Korea has nuclear weapons.

Time also said, "Indeed, South Korean newspapers no longer harp on the hard life in the North but instead find lots of space to report on fledgling economic reforms or the progress of economic projects between the two countries," and said that such internal changes within South Korea are causing tensions between the U.S. and Korea.

It also pointed out, "South Korean schoolbooks used to teach grade-schoolers to hate and fear 'the enemy.' Today's texts contain pictures of North Korean food shops ('A lot of women,' reads the caption, helpfully, 'are participating in economic activity') and suggest students practice writing letters to their counterparts across the border (without mentioning that North Korea prohibits mail from the South.)"

The magazine also said that with the attitudes of surrounding powers changing in accordance with their interests, Kim Jong-il needs to do little else but keep those powers off balance. Now you know why Kim Jong-il is smiling, Time wrote.

(Yoon Hui-yeoung, hyyoon@chosun.com )