Changing China

Grandpa Wen, so happy to see you!

North Korea knows how to put on a show for honoured guests. Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was this week treated to a special performance of the “Arirang” mass games, the world’s biggest choreographed extravaganza with as many as 100,000 participants.

Part circus act, part rhythmic gymnastics, the display features dancing girls, goose-stepping soldiers and a massive flip-card section animated by ranks of performers, which this time included one-off Chinese messages added for Wen.

But in the time honoured tradition of opaque Communist regimes, the slogans were likely meant as more than just a simple part of celebrations, and certainly suggested that the isolated regime keeps a very close eye on political developments in the northern neighbour that is one of its few allies.

In almost flawless Chinese they spelt out a giant welcome message that acknowledged their visitor’s populist reputation in China: “Grandpa Wen, so happy to see you!” — which may have been as heartfelt as it was enormous, given there is hardly a steady stream of top international leaders beating a path to the door of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. 

This was matched with a string of more formal tributes to President Hu Jintao, whose official place in the pantheon of China’s top communist leaders (along with national icons Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping) was cemented at massive national day celebrations in Beijing on Oct 1.

“Build a harmonious socialist society,” might not sound like a rousing paean, but in fact it is one of Hu’s key slogans, part of a campaign to make the country’s growth more equal after decades of frenzied development. There was also a stodgy but politically impeccable homage to Hu’s role as general secretary of the Communist Party of China, and a nod to one of his other key rallying calls, for a “people-centred concept of scientific development.”

When he touched down in Pyongyang earlier this week, Wen became the first Chinese premier to visit North Korea since 1991, according to Beijing, and he arrived at a time when the secretive regime, shunned internationally for its nuclear weapons programme, is struggling economically in the face of a recent round of tighter sanctions.

from Global News Journal:

How Ill is Kim Jong-il?

Photo:A compilation by Reuters of pool photographs and images provided by North Korea's KCNA news agency showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from 2004 to 2009. The photograph in the lower right was released this week by KCNA

By Jon Herskovitz

The image the world once had of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, with a trademark paunch, platform shoes and a bouffant hair-do, is gone and may never come back. He has now become a gaunt figure with thinning hair who has trouble walking in normal shoes, let alone ones with heels 8-10 centimetres (3-4 inches) high like he used to wear.

A look at photographs the North’s official media has released of Kim over the past few months indicate he is not a healthy man. There has been an enormous amount of speculation about what is wrong with Kim, 67, including a report from South Korean TV network YTN this week that he has life-threatening pancreatic cancer.

Kim’s health is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the highly secretive North and his actual condition is likely known by a handful of people in his inner circle who risk death or prison camp for themselves and their families if they ever whisper a word about Kim’s problems.

It is a state crime in North Korea to make any comment that questions Kim’s god-like status in the communist dynasty he has ruled since 1994 when his father and state founder Kim Il-sung died.