Kim Jong Il (1942– )

North Korean communist politician, national leader from 1994, when he succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung in what was the first dynastic succession in the communist world. Despite his official designation ‘Dear Leader’, he lacked his father's charisma and did not automatically inherit the public adulation accorded to him. In October 1997 he formally became general secretary of the ruling communist party amid famine in North Korea. North Korea's economy declined in the 1990s, adversely affected by floods and droughts, and its trade was disrupted due to the collapse of the USSR and strained relations with China. Kim has been forced to allow some limited market economy reforms. There were tense relations with South Korea and the USA, which sought the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

Kim Jong Il held a succession of senior party posts from the early 1960s. He was a member of the politburo from 1974 and its controlling inner presidium from 1980 and, although he had received no military training, was made commander-in-chief of the armed forces in 1991. The belief that he masterminded terrorist activities in the 1970s and 1980s made the West apprehensive about the succession.