The Dear Leader is making tracks

OneWorld UK

The most dangerous man in Asia has bouffant hair, platform shoes and a huge collection of Hollywood videos. And now Kim Jong-Il, who runs the worlds biggest prison colony, and a nuclear weapons factory, is up to something newand North Korea watchers fear it may be his most dangerous game yet.

The reclusive leader has been on the move for a flurry of deal-making. He last month completed a surprise tour of southern China, which climaxed in his booting guests out of a five-star hotel just over the border from capitalist Hong Kong.

And now (4-6 February) he is holding talks with his super-wealthy neighbour, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in meeting rooms in Beijing.

At the same time, Kim has admitted starting a nuclear weapons programme and is involved in a complex stand-off with the international community involving weapons, food aid and alleged illicit exports.

Kims activities are of great interest to non-governmental organisations, as they are often the only groups allowed to have contact with the ordinary people of the country. North Korea is often described as the worlds biggest gulag, as its estimated 23 million citizens are not allowed to leave, even if their government starves them to death. The country has one of the worlds worst human rights records, and it allowed famine in the 1990s to kill between 600,000 and 3.5 million people, before outside food aid reduced the death toll.

Since then, Kims nuclear weapons programme has curtailed the import of food from donors. Fears of famine returned early last year when the World Food Program rang warning bells, but it is believed this was offset by a better-than-average 2005 cereal harvest.

Yet now the sudden blur of activity from the hermit kingdom has raised concern that Kim has recognised that unless he makes major changes, the collapse of his kingdom has become inevitable.

Kims end game, whenever it begins, can progress only one of two ways: by the total crumbling of the present system, or by a drastic increase in economic and/ or political freedom. Kims interest in China suggests that he would prefer a model where economic reforms are not accompanied by corresponding reforms in personal freedom.

The population is constantly told by state media that they are living in the worlds most successful country. However, economic growth has been almost stagnant in North Korea since the 1970s, went into reverse in the 1990s, and is estimated to be running at less than two per cent a year in the 2000s. While North Korean citizens are prevented from taking part in trade outside the countrys borders, observers fear that the regime is making money through three major illicit activities: drug-running, the sale of nuclear weapons material and the counterfeiting of US currency.

The recent visit to Guangdong in southern China was particularly interesting, because it closely echoed a similar visit by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1989. Deng was impressed by the glamour and buzz of the relatively free, unregulated city, and quickly sped up reforms in the rest of China. Could Kim be reacting in the same way? While he does not give press interviews, he reportedly told his Chinese hosts that the speed of the progress made in China had deeply impressed him.

North Korean officials always poured scorn on claims that Kim led a hedonistic life while forcing his people to scratch out an austere existence. However, he was seen to down ten glasses of wine during a 2000 visit with his South Korean counterpart.

By holding separate talks with various nations, Kim is clearly trying to get political leverage from friends and enemies. Korea-watcher David Sanger of the New York Times wrote: Mr. Kim has filled gulags on a scale that might make Stalin blush and played South Korea, China, Japan and the United States off against each other in a shell game over nuclear disarmament.

Kim certainly has some interesting role-models when it comes to dealing with international affairs, large weapons and nuclear missiles: his 20,000-piece video collection is reputed to contain all the James Bond movies.