Those involved in business projects with North Korea say it is thanks to her tenacity that Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, who extended her stay in Pyongyang five times to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, succeeded in reaching a series of agreements to restore inter-Korean business projects.
Explaining the repeated delays before finally she got her chance to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Hyun said Monday, "The North told us to come around the weekend, but we decided to head there earlier." But since Hyun, who originally planned to visit North Korea for just two nights and three days, ended up postponing her return five times, the prevailing view is that she staged a virtual sit-in protest until Kim agreed to meet her. Nobody in the Hyundai Group or the South Korean government had expected her to stay that long. One South Korean government source said, "If Hyun had returned empty-handed, it could have meant an irrecoverable blow. But her willingness to endure the humiliation of waiting for days for a meeting with Kim Jong-il demonstrated her will to save her business."
One expert said Hyun was apparently trying to protect Kim Jong-il with her claim that she went early, "because the Hyundai Group needs the support of the North Korean leader to keep its business projects operating and to expand them in the future."
One Hyundai official said, "You could say Hyun had no choice but to stake everything on this trip, since the company faced a crisis of disastrous proportions due to the halted tours to Mt. Kumgang."
