The city is in North Korea and the news agency is the first Western news organization to open report from North Korea.

North Korea has mostly been off limits to international journalists for decades.

AP CEO Tom Curley says the new bureau is located inside the headquarters of the state-run Korean News Agency.

Pyongyang is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

Anchor Marco Werman has more details.

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Their former leader, Kim Jong-il, died 10 days ago. And Thursday, his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, led a memorial service.

Eulogies were read out in front of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians as they stood, heads bowed, in the central square.

And then, there was the silence.

Silence can be a powerful thing. There’s the pause in a speech that adds extra weight. The moment of silence before a performance begins. Or, sometimes, a performance itself.

In composer John Cage’s “4 minutes, 33 seconds,” a full BBC orchestra remains silent onstage, formally dressed, instruments poised. This audience is first game, then restless. Tension builds.

Finally, the first “movement” ends, and the conductor turns the page and wipes his brow.

The audience laughs, some cough, and there’s palpable release, even after just a couple of minutes of shared total silence.

Thursday, North Koreans shared their own silence – kind of.

Horns blared in the country’s capital, marking the three minutes North Koreans were to stand silent, shoulder to shoulder in public squares, bowing to mourn the passing of the man they called Dear Leader.

The ceremony was also meant to turn a page, as with a speech by a top general.

“But now we stand by Kim Jung-un. Kim Jong-un is a great leader. We will serve Kim Jong-un as the highest official. And under his leadership, we will complete this nation,” the general said.

The head of North Korea’s legislature also said, “Respected Comrade Kim Jong-un is our party, military and country’s Supreme Leader, who inherits our great comrade Kim Jong-il’s ideology, leadership, character, virtues, grit and courage. “

It’s hard to know whether all those standing silent think that’s a good thing. Criticism of the Kim family is silenced in North Korea, sometimes by imprisonment, sometimes by death. Most don’t dare, and keep silent.

In China, the country’s leaders wish more Chinese would do the same. Dozens of activists and civil rights lawyers have been imprisoned and silenced this year. Two writers Chen Wei and Chen Xi, received prison sentences of a decade or so each last week – for writing articles criticizing the government and calling for political reform.

And Thursday, lawyer Ni Yulan and her husband Dong Jiqin went on trial for helping victims of government-backed land grabs. They could face their own imposed silence.

Silence can be powerful. It can be eloquent, or oppressive. It can open up new spaces for the imagination, or shut them down. Only those experiencing a silence know which it is for them. Only once the silence ends, can they say.

The silence Thursday is in contrast to the screaming and crying Wednesday during the Kim Jong-il funeral procession.

If there were any questions left as to whom now runs the reclusive state, the answer was made clear. Kim Jong-un. The son of Kim Jong-il, who’s in his late 20s, was called the Supreme Leader of the party, people and military.

Kim’s command of the North’s million strong army has some in South Korea concerned. Namely, that country’s own military conscripts.

Service in South Korea’s military starts with a buzz cut.

Lee Kwang-min’s barbershop is right outside an army post in Seoul. Soldiers drop in for their regulation shave. But Lee says, it’s not just a haircut for new conscripts, it’s a rite of passage.

“It’s kind of becoming a man,” he said with a laugh. “New life is coming.”

Soon conscript Kim Min-jun will sit in the barber’s chair. Kim was informed this week that his mandatory military duty will begin in February.

He had hoped against hope that this day would never come.

“When I was very young, I thought when I become 20 years old, which is the age you have to complete the duty of military, I thought our nation would be unified with North Korea. So it doesn’t really matter to me, I thought. That’s what I thought when I was 10 years old.”

That didn’t happen. In fact, relations between the Koreas are arguably worse now than they were a decade ago.

North Korea’s military is twice the size of the South’s. It also has a nuclear weapons program. And the North Korean army is now under the control of Kim Jong-un, who’s only in his late 20s.

Some South Koreans are concerned about the age and inexperience of North Korea’s new leader.

“The problem is that he’s too young,” said Kim Min-jun’s friend, Choi Chanyong. “In the young times, in the young ages, you can be aggressive, take risks, adventures, so what I was worrying about is that he’s young he wants to do something, he wants to show something, so he could accidentally do something”

Do something, Choi says, like launch an attack on South Korean soil. That’s not a far-fetched scenario. Last year, the North bombarded Yeonpyeong Island. Two South Korean marines and two civilians died in the shelling.

And so, Kim accepts the necessity of mandatory conscription, though, he’s not exactly looking forward to serving in the military.

“Very personally, I don’t like it,” he said. “But thinking about the country, yeah there are no options, no other options, yeah, I’ll have to accept it”

Kim says for now, he just wants to enjoy his last two months of freedom before he gets that buzz cut.

Australian cartoonist Alan Moir on what’s in store for North Korea under Kim Jong-un.

All eyes are on North Korea as the young son of the late leader Kim Jong Il takes over from his father. Whether the latest power transition promises a new era of reform is unclear.

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Young and untested, Kim Jong-un has all but taken over North Korea’s leadership as he leads a hearse carrying the coffin of his late father.

Lee Hyeon Seo watched some of the funeral during lunch at a restaurant in Seoul run by North Korean refugees. She’s one herself; she left North Korea in 1996 when she was 14.

Lee, who’s now 29, said watching the funeral procession, reminded her of when Kim Jong-il’s father, the North’s founding leader, Kim Il-sung, suddenly died in 1994.

“I was only 12 at the time, but I remember it being really shocking,” Lee said. “When I arrived at school, everyone was crying. I felt if I didn’t cry, then people would look at me strangely, so I just pretended. Now I’ve met other North Korean defectors who say they felt the same way too back then. I thought I was the only one who faked crying.”

Even though Lee wasn’t sure why she was crying then, many North Koreans did know, says Hyun In Ae, vice president of a Seoul-based organization made up of former North Korean elites. Hyun said many North Koreans still have great respect for Kim Il Sung, but Kim Jong Il is a different story.

“People blame Kim Jong Il for why North Korea is in such bad shape,” Hyun said, “and the government knows it. So that’s why during this mourning period they’ve given out more food and staples, and kept markets open. They’re treating the people a lot better than normal.”

Hyun and other refugees say the trick now is for Pyongyang to make the country’s new leader Kim Jong Un seem less like his father and more like his grandfather.

Defector Lee Hyeon Seo said based on the images she’s seen of Kim Jong Un from the funeral, that’s exactly what the North is trying to do.

“I’ve seen pictures of Kim Jong Un from a few years ago. He was slim then. I think he put on a lot of weight to look more like his grandfather. He even wears the same type of suit and has the same haircut,” Lee said.

Lee added that she’s not sure if North Koreans will be comforted by that for very long. But she said she hopes that Kim Jong Un will eventually earn their respect by making the kind of changes that his father and grandfather never did.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: The World’s Mary Kay Magistad is in the capital of North Korea’s closest and perhaps only ally, China. Mary Kay watched the funeral procession on TV in Beijing today. What were your impressions?

Mary Kay Magistad: Well, it was very somber with the snow falling and the North Korean announcer saying in mournful tones that this was the sky weeping for the dear leader. There certainly was an outpouring of grief. It almost felt like the reciprocal pep rally where different sections of the crowd were trying to outdo each other in how loudly they could weep, how much they could jump up and down and bend over double as the hurst went past them. It was meant to mark the passing of a leader the people were meant to revere as a god and to allow them to see his son, Kim Jong Un, walking beside the hurst as the heir apparent. Sort of a moment for North Koreans to just concentrate their minds and recognize that they’re moving into a new era. And at least to that extent it accomplished its purpose.

Mullins: Let’s talk about the new era in a second, but you also saw the funeral, you were in South Korea at the time, of Kim Il Sung, this was Kim Jong Il’s father. He did in 1994. That was broadcast at least in South Korea, but what were the differences from that funeral to this one?

Magistad: Well, one of the similarities is that it was almost the same funeral, the same route moving the body from the same place to another place, and it was Kim Jong Il, the son, who choreographed his father’s funeral. So in a sense he also choreographed his funeral, but what was different is that for Kim Il Sung I think people still really believed in him as this supernaturally great leader. I had been in North Korea in 1989 and then again in 2005 and it was really dramatic to me how much of a difference there was in how people talked about the leadership. In 1989 it really was like they were talking about someone they believed in as though he were a god.

Mullins: This is Kim Il Sung.

Magistad: Kim Il Sung.

Mullins: The founder of modern North Korea.

Magistad: In 2005 they were still saying the words, but it almost seemed like there was an edge of cynicism as they said them. And one reason for this could be that there had been a famine in the 1990s during which between one and two million North Koreans died or believed to have died. The economy had contracted and by the time Kim Jong Il died the average North Korean lifespan is now 3-1/2 years shorter than it was when he came to power.

Mullins: Well, bearing all of that in mind could it be that the grief that we saw during this funeral procession today, could it be that it really was genuine?

Magistad: I’m sure some of it was, but the likelihood that that many people standing out in the cold for that many hours could turn it on like that when the hurst went by with that much intensity, I think some of it was probably done for theatrical effect.

Mullins: Did anything about today’s events tell you who is in control in North Korea? If it is indeed Kim Jong Il’s son, Kim Jong Un?

Magistad: Well, certainly, Kim Jong Un was walking next to the hurst and the funeral cortege. Near him were his uncle, Jang Song Taek, who is considered to be sort of a regent or at least a guide for him in his new role, and also the army chief of staff, Ri Yong Ho. So it’s sort of the old guard who are expected to give Kim Jong a fair bit of guidance as he takes up the role of leader of North Korea.

Mullins: What about South Korea, what’s the reaction been there?

Magistad: In South Korea as when Kim Il Sung died people are sort of shrugging and getting on with life. I mean I think there is a little bit of alertness to see what might Kim Jong Un do to try to earn his stripes. And just in the past year or so he’s taken a more prominent role in the party, it appears that he has clamped down a bit on North Koreans who are trying to escape to get to China, to South Korea. And there have been purges within the party that he is said to have been behind. So it’s unclear what his leadership style is going to be and how much of it is going to be him and how much of it will be those behind him, but South Koreans are certainly interested in finding out as time goes on and of course, so is China.

Mullins: The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing, thank you.

Magistad: Thank you, Lisa.

Mullins: Mary Kay has been updating her Twitter stream with the latest on North Korea. You can follow her @marykaymagistad. To get the latest news about the changing of the guard in North Korea from our partners at the BBC, extensive coverage at theworld.org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is “The World”. North Korea is preparing for a funeral later this week to bid farewell to its dear leader, Kim Jong Il. Meanwhile, Kim’s successor, the youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, has a new title. He’s been named head of North Korea’s ruling party. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad has been following these latest developments. She’s now in Beijing and, Mary Kay, there are several titles that Kim Jong-Un is now going to assume. Why don’t you [xx] them out for us?

Mary Kay Magistad: OK. So perhaps the most important is that he has been acknowledged as being the head of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of the Communist Party of North Korea, and this gives him authority over both political and military matters. This comes on top of the state media in North Korea on Saturday, referring to him as the supreme commander of North Korea’s million plus armed forces. If there had been any question of whether the armed forces were going to go along with a twenty something year old leader who hasn’t actually served in the military, although he now holds the title of general, it seems that that’s been accepted so far.

Mullins: Alright. And what other titles is he assuming?

Magistad: Well, we don’t quite know yet. Kim Jong-Un hasn’t yet had an honorific attached to his name that stuck. North Korean state media, at one point this week, referred to him as ‘the dear leader’ at least in translation. That’s what we were reading here. It seemed a little. . .

Mullins: Even though that was his dad’s. . .

Magistad: Exactly. So it seems a little odd and it seems like they’re still sort of trying to figure out what they should call him.

Mullins: Well, if one is to try and read the tea leaves on whether or not there are those who feel as though this new leader of North Korea is unprepared, the pictures tell a lot. The pictures of who is standing next to this new North Korean leader during official events.

Magistad: Right. Just in the last couple of days, Kim Jong-Un’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, was seen standing near him in a general’s uniform. It was the first time that the uncle had been seen in a military uniform with Kim Jong-Un thus far. It is believed that the uncle and his wife will be playing some sort of a guiding role. Kim Jong-Un has shown signs of not particularly liking this arrangement of seeing his uncle as being kind of the old guard, so it will be interesting to see how that particular relationship plays out in the coming weeks and months.

Mullins: I wonder also where Kim Jong-Un’s older brother who was passed over for the job of the next leader, where he stands on all this politically and how much he’s even being shown in public, if he’s going to be attending the funeral on Wednesday or not, do we know?

Magistad: Yeah, all really interesting questions. This is Kim Jong-nam who is about forty. There was an unconfirmed report in the Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s news agency today, saying that he had traveled to Beijing and is “under Chinese protection” and that it’s unclear whether he’ll be going to the funeral or not. Now he’s been spending quite a bit of his time in Macau over the past few months. That’s sort of a gambling Mecca where a lot of Chinese officials go to spend their money. It’s a place that’s relatively free, certainly compared to North Korea, but even compared to China, and he’s been quoted in recent days saying things like “I don’t think that North Korea should have a hereditary leadership and we really should be moving towards having more political reform,” and when people have asked him whether he had any interest in becoming leader of North Korea, he said, “Yeah, no. I’m just a son of Kim Jong Il. I’m not leadership material,” but of course, people look to him and wonder, you know, what he’s really thinking. They look to the second son, Kim Jong-chul, who Kim Jong Il rejected as being too effeminate, one of the last times he was seen was at an Eric Clapton concert in Singapore a few months back wearing an earring and a pair of dark glasses and also didn’t really look like leadership material for North Korea as it is today.

Mullins: Well, I guess more will be known later in the week on Wednesday, when we find out who in the family actually makes the trip to the funeral and what transpires there and what’s shown to the rest of the world. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing. Thanks a lot.

Magistad: Thank you, Lisa.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

South Korean activists protest against both the hereditary succession in North Korea and those who wish to go to the North to pay respects to Kim Jong-il. (Photo: Reuters/NewsLook)

Kim Jong Un now heads the ruling Worker’s Party’s central committee, a post that helps clear the way for him to take over following his father’s death from an apparent heart attack earlier this month.

But little is known about the young Kim, who’s believed to be in his late 20s. Uncertainty in the North often translates to uncertainty in South Korea’s economy.

For instance, back in 1994, after North Korea’s founding ruler Kim Il Sung passed away, consumers in the South hoarded staples, fearing an outbreak of war.

But that doesn’t appear to be happening this time around. At the Well Being neighborhood market in Seoul, a clerk said nothing changed after news of the death of Kim Jong Il. Prices are the same and there’s no shortage of goods.

Whenever bad news comes out of North Korea, like when it tested a nuclear device in 2006, or when it attacked a South Korean island last year, the stock market in the South reacts. Lim Soo-ho, an analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said South Korea’s KOSPI did drop a few points after the announcement of Kim’s death, but bounced back two days later.

According to Lim, South Korea’s economy has remained virtually unaffected because investors and consumers don’t see North Korea’s transition as a problem.

He added that people here have experienced these types of situations before, like in 1994. They’ve learned from them; any bad situation has always gone back to normal.

Lim said it also helps that the South Korean government isn’t provoking North Korea, like it did with a military build up in 1994.

Seoul’s expat business community didn’t flinch either, according to Tom Coyner, president of Soft Landing Consulting. He said the shock could have been greater if investors hadn’t seen this one coming.

“Korea seems to be a country that operates on a crisis du jour basis, so we have Kim Jong Il dying, but that’s not a big unexpected event. We knew he was in poor health and the business environment is taking it in stride,” Coyner said.

But Coyner said that given that we still don’t know a lot about the son, Kim Jong Un, investors and other business leaders will have to wait and see how things play out once he officially takes over.

Still, some observers see opportunity in Kim Jong Un’s rise to power.

Hank Ahn, a commissioner at KOTRA, a trade and investments agency, said the younger Kim’s exposure to the West during his school years in Switzerland could mean he’s open to doing business with the outside world — and that’s something South Korea could cash in on.

“It’s quite natural we can assume that North Korea will eventually open up its economy to the outside world,” Ahn said. “So it’s better for us, we can reduce our unification costs when the two countries are reunified, even if we don’t know when. And besides, we can export our products to North Korea as well.”

But Kim Jong Un might have more immediate concerns on his mind.

He’s preparing for his father’s funeral on Wednesday. So improving North Korea’s economy may have to wait.

Attached to the balloons are leaflets describing atrocities allegedly orchestrated by the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died last Saturday.

The defectors shout Down with Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jong Un, as they released the balloons.

Park Sang Hak, who organizes frequent balloon drops into his former homeland, said, “We’re sending a message to the North Korean people about the truth about the Kim Jong Il dictatorship.”

North Korea has threatened to attack the launch site if the South Korean government doesn’t put an end to the balloon leafleting. But Seoul said it won’t interfere, saying it’s a matter of free speech.

Seoul said the same thing about an evangelical Christian group that asked for government permission to switch on Christmas lights along the Korean border. The lights can be seen from the North, and Pyongyang has called the display “psychological warfare.”

This week, Seoul changed its stance on the decorations.

Yu Woo-ik, South Korea’s Minister of Unification, said since North Korea is in a mourning period, the South Korean government has urged the religious groups to postpone the lighting of the Christmas trees.

On Thursday, the evangelical group agreed to hold off.

The Unification Ministry also said that while the government won’t offer official condolences to Pyongyang, it will allow private citizens and organizations to express sympathy via letter or fax to the North.

Seoul won’t send a delegation to Kim’s funeral either. But it will permit the wife of the late South Korean president Kim Dae Jung and the chairwoman of the Hyundai Group to attend. Pyongyang sent delegations to their husbands’ funerals.

Mixed Signals

John Delury, who lectures in East Asian Studies at Seoul’s Yonsei University, said South Korea is sending mixed signals. He added that the government’s indecision over how to respond to Kim Jong Il’s death will only add more strain to inter-Korean relations, and confuse the South Korean public.

“The deeper issue here is that the responses in South Korean society are very complex and people don’t know what they can say and can’t say,” Delury said.

But the fact that Seoul is saying anything about Kim Jong Il doesn’t sit well with for Park Sang Hak. The North Korean refugee wonders why anyone would commemorate this dictator.

“What kind of person was Kim Jong Il?” Park said. “No one sent condolences to Libya after Gaddafi died, and Kim Jong Il was worse than him. Gaddafi didn’t have prison camps, he didn’t starve his people like Kim did.”

Park said he’ll have his own send off for his former Dear Leader. He plans his next balloon launch for December 28th, the day North Koreans lay their late ruler to rest.

Moshik, Ma'ariv, Israel

North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has always been fodder for political cartoonists and his untimely death is no exception. In these cartoons look for wailing and crying, body doubles, the late leader trying to take a nuclear warhead into the afterlife, and the cartoon debut of Kim Jong Un, the “Hair Apparent”.

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It was a little much for one observer, who remarked on a Chinese newspaper website: “Paying respects to a leader doesn’t have to go so far. After all, everyone will die one day.”

But for China’s leaders, somber condolences were the order of the day. On Tuesday, President Hu Jintao visited the North Korean embassy in Beijing, as did his likely successor, current Vice President Xi Jinping, other officials and other visitors, carrying bouquets of white flowers. Foreign journalists, looking for visas to cover Kim Jong-Il’s funeral, were told to come back next year.

North Korea has turned inward for 13 days of mourning, limiting the flow of traffic across its usual trading point with China, at Dandong. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu delivered a statement from China’s top leadership.

“We are shocked to learn that DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — North Korea’s official name) top leader comrade Kim Jong Il passed away and we hereby express our deep condolences on his demise and send sincere regards to the DPRK people,” the statement read. “Comrade Kim Jong-il was a great leader of the DPRK people, and an intimate friend of the Chinese people, and he had made important contributions to developing the DPRK’s socialist cause and promoting good-neighborly and cooperative relations between China and the DPRK.”

Kim didn’t always cooperate as China might have liked. He resisted calls to enact economic reforms; he made sure years of nuclear disarmament talks that China hosted went nowhere; and much to China’s dismay, he launched missiles or carried out nuclear tests whenever he wanted to get international attention and food aid.

North Korea gets most of its food and fuel from China, and that’s become more important this year, with about six million North Koreans – a quarter of the population — in need of food aid, in the face of a bad harvest and UN sanctions. North Korea also supports a million-man army, which needs its food and fuel, too.

“I think it’s clear that the sanctions had been biting, that they’d taken a toll, that the North has definite cash-flow problems,” says Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, the International Crisis Group’s Northeast Asia project manager. “And I think North Korea is fundamentally uncomfortable with having to rely on China. Ideally, they’d like to be able to balance out that dependency with the Russians, with the Americans, with any other European country, some of which are already quite engaged with North Korea.”

It may be with the expectation of food aid that North Korea announced on Saturday – around the same time Kim Jong Il is said to have died – that it would suspend its uranium enriched nuclear weapons program, a central U.S. demand for the resumption of disarmament talks.

Whether such talks would lead anywhere is another question. Brian Myer, an international relations professor at Dongseo University in Seoul, told the BBC he doesn’t expect new leader Kim Jung-Un to veer significantly from his father’s path when it comes to North Korea’s nuclear program.

“I think he’ll want to make progress, not in the sense we would use, but for him, I think progress means further weaponizing the nuclear potential he has,” Meyer said. “North Korea really has no reason to disarm or to make peace with the United States, because if it were to do so, it would really lose all reason to exist outside South Korea as a separate state.”

Kim Jong Il, and his father Kim Il Sung before him, kept power by isolating the North Korean population, and feeding it stories both of North Korea’s superiority to all other places, and of the imminent threat of attack from external enemies — the United States, especially. That’s justified the expense of keeping a huge army, and maintaining a “military first” policy. But with ever more North Koreans succeeding in traveling to China and coming back with stories of the outside and pirated DVDs, a growing number of North Koreans are getting a clearer idea of what the outside world is like, and how much they’re suffering by comparison.

Still, power remains in the hands of the elites, with the Kim family at the core. And North Korea’s nuclear program provides insurance that North Korea won’t become the next Libya or Iraq. It’s also a bargaining chip for aid, which has proven lucrative over time, especially to North Korea’s small core of elites. The urge for those elites to protect their privileges – while much of the population suffers – may help the succession go smoothly, in the short run. Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group said the concern is what might happen later.

“Our greatest worry would be that if Kim Jung Un or his closest supporters feel insecure or weak enough, if for example, there were splits in the leadership, they might feel they have to demonstrate their military prowess, and we might go back to a phase of seeing more provocation,” Kleine-Ahlbrandt said.

But for now, the focus is on presenting a united front, mourning the dead, marking the passing of one era and the beginning of another. Whether the young third-generation heir to a socialist dynasty can do any better for his country than his father did, China’s leaders stand ready to offer help and guidance.

On Tuesday, they invited Kim Jung-Un to visit, once a decent interval has passed.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Stephen Bosworth was, until recently, President Obama’s special envoy for North Korea. He’s also the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. We were intrigued to see analyst Victor Chao[SP] in the New York Times today, making the point that Washington is basically helpless in this new reality in North Korea. Does China, as he points out, really hold all the cards, and if so where does that leave the US right now?

Stephen Bosworth: I’m not sure China holds all the cards right and we, of course, I think, hold a few basically in terms of the signals we send about how we would like to relate to the North Korean regime as time moves on, but in fact, neither we nor China, in my judgement, really know very much about the inner workings of North Korea. This is a very secretive state and we know a little bit about what their arrangements for the succession, but not all that much.

Werman: Doesn’t China know more about North Korea though, than the US?

Bosworth: Probably because they have connections that we don’t have, particularly through their military. The two militaries have a kind of fraternal connection that goes back, not surprisingly, to the Korean war.

Werman: This is a powerful moment, though, for the world. I mean if some analysts are suggesting that China is in this position, they have some kind of intelligence that makes them feel like, “Well, we’re at a point where we can either let North Korea go it alone, we let them go away or we keep them for ourselves.”

Bosworth: Well, I’m not sure that reflects China’s real interests in North Korea. China does not want North Korea to be a permanent nuclear weapon state. On the other hand, they also don’t want North Korea to collapse. They view North Korea as a very useful buffer in a Geo-strategic sense against South Korea which has a military alliance with the United States. Their nightmare would be the re-unification of the two Korea under a South Korean model with a military relationship with the United States.

Werman: Why would that be a nightmare?

Bosworth: They’re not eager to have a US military presence in effect on their border. I’m not sure that’s a good idea for us either. We tried that once back in 1950, and we didn’t like the result too much.

Werman: You know, when there’s so little intelligence, I’m wondering kind of what advice you have, Stephen Bosworth, for the United States government right now in dealing with North Korea. I mean it’s kind of like looking at a picture and you can’t really see what’s going on in the picture.

Bosworth: No, I think the advice that anyone would have is basically to remain calm, don’t treat this as some sort of a flaming crisis – at this point it’s not, but the real problem is that North Korea is a failing state. A failing state right at the heart of probably the most strategically important economic region of the world – North East Asia. So until we can act collectively with the rest of the countries in the region to stabilize North Korea and give it some prospect for growth, it’s going to remain a point of great concern. We must be willing to engage with North Korea. We have a tendency to regard all problems as being vulnerable to a very short term solution.

Werman: And remind us what that strategy is, that the United States has of dealing with this in the long term.

Bosworth: Well, we’ve been dealing with this, attempting to, at least, through the so called Six-Party process, working with our allies and partners in the region. We have also been pushing them, particularly the Chinese have been pushing them, to embark upon fundamental reform. So far, the North Korean have resisted that. They need it desperately. I think that they even know that they need reform, but they fear that opening up, which would be part of the reform process, makes them very vulnerable to external influence and jeopardizes the survival of the regime, and regime survival is their fundamental goal.

Werman: Well, given that regime survival is going to be there, this is Christmas after all. We can wish. What is the one wish you would have for some kind of progress forward on North Korea right now? Some kind of like little crack in the wall, some ray of sunlight coming through.

Bosworth: Well, I think some indication for the North Koreans that they’re willing to engage in good faith efforts to establish that they’re prepared to come back and talk seriously about the fundamental problems that exist. This is going to be a long term problem. We’re going to have to manage it for a long period of time and remain engaged.

Werman: Stephen Bosworth, dean of the Fletcher School and former envoy to North Korea. Thank you very much for coming in.

Bosworth: You’re very welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

It was just the start of lunch hour on Monday when South Korean local news was interrupted by a special broadcast from the North.

A very emotional North Korean anchorwoman wearing a traditional Korean black funeral gown announced that Kim Jong-il had died this past Saturday from a heart attack. She said the Dear Leader was exhausted from all the guidance he had given to make North Korea a great nation.

The South Korean government went into immediate crisis mode.

Choi Bo-sun, a spokesman for the Ministry of Unification, the government body that deals with all North Korean matters, gave a live address on South Korean television. Choi said Seoul is following established protocol, and is coping with the death of Kim Jong Il according to long-established plans. He added that a special commission has been created to monitor all developments in the North.

That might include whether or not the firing of a short-range missile off North Korea’s East coast late on Monday was connected to Kim’s death. So far, South Korean government sources have told local media that the two are not related.

President Lee Myung Bak has urged South Koreans to remain calm and go about their normal lives. And judging by reactions in Seoul, it seems many South Koreans are doing just that. Many people I spoke to on the streets of Seoul on Monday said they didn’t care about the death of North Korea’s leader; some even laughed it off.

But Yu Mi Hyun, who’s 25, said people here should care. Yu said she was in her office when she heard the news. At first she didn’t think it was a big deal. “But after I spoke to friends in the military, I realized that this is really important.”

A 56-year-old man named Mr. Seong who reading newspapers posted on a billboard outside the Seoul Press Center had other concerns. He said he’s worried how the North Korean leader’s death might affect the economy.

“Everything in the market is going to change,” Seong said. “All sectors are going to be affected by his death.”

Seong had a point. South Korea’s KOSPI index took a 3.2 percent hit as news of uncertainty on the Korean peninsula reached investors abroad.

But the uncertainty is raising hopes for some in South Korea, namely, the 22,000 strong community of North Korean defectors.

Kim Hung-kwang, president of North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, an organization made up of former North Korean elites, said he’s telling constituents not to get too excited though.

He said North Korea under a new leader can go one of two ways; it can become open to the international community and engage, or it could become an even more militarized state and even more dangerous than before.

But Kim Hung-kwang said now’s the time to reach out to North Koreans and counter the propaganda that painted Kim Jong Il as a hero.

He said even though many difficulties lie ahead, the day when he and other defectors can finally return to their home suddenly seems closer.

More from the BBC

North Koreans weeping publicly (KCNA footage)

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Marco Werman: Reaction inside North Korea is much harder to gauge. The government in Pyongyang keeps a very tight reign on information. So far the images being broadcast by North Korean state media feature people in the capital wailing and crying as they mourn the loss of their dear leader. The students at the Pyongyang No. 1 Secondary School were united in their sorrow. Professor Hazel Smith is an expert on North Korea at Cranfield University in England. She lived in North Korea for two years. Smith says those wailing students are not your average North Koreans.

Hazel Smith: Pyongyang No. 1 Secondary School is where the elite go to school and where they will have been filmed by the North Korean TV to show all this grief in order to put on a show for the world. So the main question is what about the rest of the people? Most people think that Kim Jong Il doesn’t provide them with a descent life, enough food to eat, that they’ve suffered a calamitous degradation of their lives economically over the past 20 years. And so certainly there is little legitimacy of this government among the population as a whole.

Werman: Well, then let me as this question, if the state has less control now why were there not people happy and maybe expressing the happiness that Kim Jong Il is gone?

Smith: Well, this is still an authoritarian country and it’s still incredibly difficult in that they would be punished if they criticized the leadership, that’s one thing. And the other thing, it’s about minus 14 degrees celsius…

Werman: Yeah, that’s 7 Fahrenheit, it’s really freezing.

Smith: People literally can’t move from door to door without freezing. I lived there through two very cold winters and it’s no joke. Without fuel you simply have, you can’t move outside because if you breath you freeze. So there is no scope for people getting on the streets and demonstrating one way or the other. In fact, the coldest people are going to be those that have to take part in these orchestrated funeral ceremonies that will take place over the next few weeks.

Werman: Now, Hazel, we’ve seen people take to the streets and put everything on the line in the Arab world through the Arab Spring to push their heads of state out of power. Now, Kim Jong Il has died, he’s gone. Do you personally hold out any hope as somebody that’s live in North Korea, somebody that visits there, that Kim’s death could lead to greater freedoms for North Koreans?

Smith: What we see in North Korea is that the country is run domestically by a military commission and it has been run by this commission since the late 1990s, and Kim Jong Il was leader of this commission. That means there’s going to be no change in the central authority or the central approach towards increasing political freedom for people in the country. At the same time the people as I said earlier, the vast majority of the population of the 24 million population simply do not have enough food and fuel to survive. All the revolutions made in history and those in the Middle East are not made by starving people. Revolutions are made by people who have enough to eat and want more freedom, usually educated, usually lower middle class, although there is an educated middle class in North Korea, these people are the ones that don’t have food in the back garden who live in big apartment blocks (it’s a 70% urbanized country) who are literally as I said earlier, trying to scrape enough food to eat and to physically get the family through the winter.

Werman: What have the multiple generations of Kims done to North Koreans in terms of obedience? Do North Koreans follow these leaders because they have to now or has time meant that they actually want to follow them?

Smith: There was strong ideological control for the media and through education through the whole of the period of Kim Il Sung and it was backed up by very strict penal controls. There were purges in the ’50s, people were executed as happened in the Soviet Union. When you come to the last 20 years the state hasn’t been able to maintain those controls and North Koreans, as any other people in the world, they’re just the same as you and me, they want a good job, they want their children to have a good education…you know, they want to have a good laugh and be able to go out and enjoy themselves like everybody else. They are not a brainwashed people who just do what they’re told. There is not sense of cause because they’re not idiots. That Kim Jong Il has delivered anything for them when their families are living in poverty and where they get lots of information about the outside world today through South Korean media, through DVDs, when you see the kids, when I saw the kids in Pyongyang in May when I was last there, you can see them copying the styles of the South Korean male pop stars. Young men you know, coiffed up hair and jackets pushed back toward the elbows. You can see it’s very apparently a way it wasn’t 8-9 years ago when I used to live there. There’s a lot of influence from the outside world there.

Werman: Hazel Smith, a professor at Cranfield University in England, thank you very much.

Smith: Thank you.

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