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North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has been quoted as saying it was "the firm intention of the party and the people to open the gates on a powerful country by 2012." He made the cryptic statement while inspecting the Chollima Steel Complex in South Pyongan Province, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Earlier, Kim was quoted by the Korean Central Television Station as saying, "Now that an ideologically and militarily powerful country has been achieved through the development of nuclear weapons, an economically powerful country should be achieved by 2012." "A country" in each case seems to refer to a stage in North Korea's development.
But why 2012? North Korea experts note that 2012 is the centenary of founder Kim Il-sung's birth, and suggest his son may be looking for some milestone for the occasion.
The year 2012 could also be politically important in that presidential elections are slated in South Korea, the U.S. and Russia, and that the Chinese leadership is to undergo a generation shift in 2013. That suggests the South Korean and American administrations could then be looking for some kind of breakthrough in the North Korea problem to bolster their image, and North Korea could try to take advantage of this by fishing for economic support.
"Kim Jong-il, who is sick, will be 70 and want to name a successor in one form of another by 2012, the 40th anniversary of his own official designation as the successor," one expert said, and the new developmental stage Kim is promising would lay the groundwork for that.
Chung Young-tae, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification warned it was best to prepare for all eventualities since nobody knows what could happen in 2012 amid potential power changes among all the main players.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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