Can N.Korea Live Without Outside Threats?

Some analysts describe the North Korean move as part of its efforts to improve relations with the United States to end its diplomatic isolation.

But others considers the move as a calculated scheme aimed at winning a corresponding gesture from Washington to avoid mounting international pressure over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.

They say North Korea would not scrap its own hostile policy against the United States because Pyongyang has used threats from the outside to maintain internal tension to tighten its grip on the people.

When North Korea held a massive public rally on Sunday, officials and analysts here expected anti-U.S. slogans would sweep the gathering as it did in the past.

Surprisingly enough, however, there were no rhetoric against the United States in the rally at Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang named after the country founding leader and father of its current leader Kim Jong Il.

Instead of chanting anti-U.S. slogans, about 100,000 people gathered for the rally shouted slogans for absolute loyalty to Kim Jong Il, lining up behind giants pictures of the two Kims.

The gathering was designed to uphold the leadership of the ruling Workers' Party marking 100 days ahead of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Party, which has placed its top priority to struggles against "U.S. imperialists that has occupied the southern half of the Korean peninsula." The founding anniversary falls on Oct. 10.

High-level officials also attended the rally, including Prime Minister Pak Pong Ju and Yang Hyong Sop, vice chairman of the Presidium of the legislative Supreme People's Assembly, but they refrained from criticizing the United States. Instead, they focused their speeches on calling for national efforts to revive its ruined economy.

In another surprising gesture, North Korean spectators at a female boxing championship match last week politely stood as the United States' national anthem was played at a Pyongyang stadium under the U.S. national flag.

None of more than 12,000 spectators booed at a U.S. boxer who fought a North Korean, according to South Korean broadcaster KBS who promoted the sport event.

North Korea experts said the North Koreans' behaviors were politically arranged to woo Washington's concession in their nuclear standoff that strained bilateral relations for the past three years.

The moves followed Kim Jong Il's reconciliatory gesture toward the Bush administration that has labeled Pyongyang part of "an axis of evil," responding to President Bush's use of "Mr." in describing the North Korean leader, which was welcomed by Pyongyang's state media as a goodwill gesture.

In a meeting with South Korean officials last month, Kim Jong Il used the honorific "Mr." and "his Excellency" when referring to Bush.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young quoted Kim as saying that "there is no reason to harbor hard feelings about Mr. George Bush." He even asked Chung if the U.S. president should be addressed by "gakha," Korea's most courtesy title that translates as "his Excellency."

Kim was also quoted as saying North Korea "was trying to stand against the United States because it looked down on us" and has "never given up" on the talks with Washington.

"North Korea has softened its stance toward the United States in an apparent bid to win a corresponding conciliatory gesture from the United States," said Ryoo Kihl-jae, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University.

But Prof. Ryoo and other analysts say the North's move does not mean a change in North Korea's policy toward the United States.

"North Korea would revive anti-U.S. propaganda once it feels its need," said Park Young-ho, an analyst at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification.

North Korea has successfully tamed the hungry-stricken people by spreading a sense of crisis across the country to call for a rally for stronger public unity behind the communist leadership, Kim said.

It is doubtful that the Kim Jong Il regime can maintain its totalitarian rule and strict domestic control over the hungry people without the outside enemy that has forced the people to endure economic troubles for the past decades, analysts say.

By SpaceWar