Kim Jong Il's death could pose a serious challenge for China at a sensitive time even as it raises an opportunity for Beijing to help steer the North away from its history of isolation and belligerence. Japan and Russia also reacted with caution to the news on Monday.
North Korea's dictator has sent shock waves through Asia's political and military relations in recent years with nuclear tests and then with attacks against the South. As a result, South Korea and Japan have drawn closer to the U.S., complicating China's efforts for greater sway in the region.
China—which faces a slowing economy, unrest at home and a sensitive once-a-decade political change next year—is unlikely to alter a longstanding policy of supporting North Korea, but sees Kim's death in the long term as an opportunity to encourage its neighbor to introduce market reforms and emerge from diplomatic isolation, according to Chinese experts.
As Pyongyang's only military ally and its biggest aid donor and trade partner, Beijing is expected to offer its strong backing to Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong Eun, to encourage a smooth transition of power and minimize the risk of a leadership struggle, the experts said.
Chinese leaders, concerned that the younger Mr. Kim has had less than two years to prepare for the succession, may also offer additional economic assistance to boost his standing and to act as an incentive for showing restraint in relations with the South, they said.
"Now that the new leader has come, we'd like to push for a redirection of the country," said Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University who writes regularly on North Korea. "I think his passing away will turn out to be a great opportunity for North Korea to choose a new direction."
He added that the new North Korean leadership was unlikely to provoke a military confrontation with the South in the short term, in part because China had withheld some defense and civilian assistance as a result of North-South military clashes last year. He said China had not agreed to the North's request to buy Chinese J-10 fighter planes, for instance.
China, which backed the North in the 1950-53 Korean War, is anxious to avert an escalation of hostilities with the South, fearing that could complicate its own international relations, or worse, draw it into another proxy conflict with the U.S. China also worries that a total economic or political collapse of the North Korean regime could send a flood of refugees into its northeastern provinces and bring many of the roughly 30,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea right to its borders. China is loath to share a border with a united Korea that would be closely allied with the U.S.—a concern that has been magnified by the Obama administration's intent to pivot U.S. foreign policy toward Asia.
Beijing faced criticism at home and overseas last year after it refused to condemn North Korea following the sinking of a South Korean ship and the shelling of a South Korean island, both of which were widely blamed on Pyongyang by the rest of the international community.
In the longer term, however, China's leaders hope that the younger Mr. Kim—who was educated in Switzerland and is believed to have visited China often—will launch the market-oriented economic reforms that his father often appeared to favor but never delivered.
Beijing has also been frustrated in recent years by North Korea's refusal to abandon its nuclear-weapons program.
China's state broadcaster, China Central Television, started its flagship 7 p.m .news broadcast Monday with a news anchor reading the text of a telegram of condolences it said China's leaders sent to North Korea on Monday.
"China's [Communist] Party, government and people feel deeply sorrowful for Comrade Kim Jong Il's passing. The Chinese people will forever cherish his memory," CCTV quoted the telegram from China's State Council and other leadership bodies as saying. "We believe the North Korean people will…unite around the Workers Party of Korea, and under the leadership of comrade Kim Jong Eun will turn their sorrow into strength."
"The Chinese people will always stand with the North Korean people. May comrade Kim Jong Il be forever remembered by posterity," it concluded. The news broadcast proceeded to show footage of residents in North Korea weeping.
The elder Kim visited China twice this year and twice the year before in what many analysts saw as an attempt to win China's endorsement for the transition plan—which was eventually forthcoming, although Beijing doesn't favor such dynastic successions.
"The transition period has been very short" for the younger Mr. Kim," said Cai Jian, deputy director of the Center for Korean Studies of Fudan University in Shanghai. "It is hard to say whether he has the ability or not now. But if he can get the support from China and Russia, the two outside powers, it's easier for him to control the situation."
Meanwhile, Japan, which colonized the Korean Peninsula for 35 years until the end of World War II and has long had a fraught relationship with the North, is one of the countries with the most to fear from political or economic instability there.
Japan reacted with concern to Kim's death but no extra security measures Monday. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda called an emergency meeting of his national security council, with instructions to be ready for any unexpected developments. He also talked with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, agreeing to share information.
The country lies in range of North Korean missiles, and is a favorite target of North Korean military grandstanding. Concerns heightened after North Korea fired test missiles over Japan in August 1998 and then again in 2009. North Korea said at the time that the rockets were launching satellites.
Another major issue between the two countries has been the abduction of Japanese citizens during the late 1970s and early 1980s by North Korean agents, who often used them as language teachers for the country's spies.
Kenichi Ichikawa, whose brother Shuichi was one of the Japanese kidnapped in 1978, said he hopes that Japan uses the opportunity of a regime change to push harder for the release of any abductees still in the country. "I hope the government grabs this rare chance to take some serious action," said Mr. Ichikawa, who believes his brother is still alive, despite North Korea's declaration that he died years ago.
On Monday, the Tokyo headquarters of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, the group representing pro-North ethnic Koreans living in Japan, was flying the North Korean flag at half-staff.
Expressing "condolences" for "the sudden passing of Kim Jong Il," Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said that Japan was closely watching whether the transition of power will be made peacefully.
Japan's Foreign Minister, Koichiro Gemba, will discuss the North Korea issue Monday with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a previously scheduled visit to Washington.
Russia, one of the few countries that Kim Jong Il visited recently, reacted cautiously to Kim's death. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "We expect that the loss that this friendly people have suffered won't impact the further development of our friendly relations," the Interfax news agency reported. President Dmitry Medvedev sent a telegram of condolences to Mr. Kim's son, the Kremlin said.
Mr. Medvedev had met the elder Mr. Kim during his train tour of Siberia earlier this year.
Russian analysts said the succession could ultimately change North Korea's direction. Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a semiofficial advisory body, said that while short-term change would be unlikely, over the medium term, reforms were more likely.
"In the short term, foreign policy won't change simply because the successor is surrounded by the old leadership which committed numerous mistakes and crimes and well understands that any sharp changes would end badly for this leadership," Mr. Karaganov told Interfax. But over time, he told Interfax, "everything will change in the direction of softening because there's no other way out."
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