It was a slight distraction – around noon.  My panel on G20 global governance survivability had just ended.  The next panel on international monetary policy had begun, chaired by the President of KDI, Oh-Seok Hyun.

Here we are in downtown Seoul at a conference organized jointly by the Korean Ministry of Finance and Strategy and the Korean Development Institute.  The Conference “World Economy in 2012 & Global Economic Cooperation: Issues for the Mexican G20 Ahead” had opened with ministerial comment and weight and was proceeding in a fairly calm and deliberate way.

Anyway back to President Hyun.  A note was carried to the dais by one of KDI’s many assistants and passed to the President.  President Hyun showed  momentary surprise and then it passed and he seemed to go back to chairing the panel.  I didn’t think much of it.

Then I felt the buzz of my iPhone.  Distracted, I pulled the phone from pouch and gazed at a rather startlingly news message – Kim Jong-il was dead.   Yikes.  Now that was surprising as here I was sitting in a plush conference room in downtown – Seoul – yep Seoul!  I passed on the news message to a Korean colleague who quickly scrambled out of the room to contact colleagues back at KDI. To learn more – maybe.  As it turned out they had not been alerted to the great leader’s death.  But the news was spreading fast.

So within hours the news was all over the conference and beyond.  It was passingly odd.  To be so close to North Korea (DPRK) – at this critical juncture.  So what was the reaction in Seoul.  Well, I suppose uncertainty was the most palpable sense felt.  The South – Korea – with its almost 50 million people – had for many years longed for reunification.  But that was no longer the case.  Korea had grown wary of the aggressiveness, the nuclear weaponry – of living next to ‘the crazy’ cousin – 22 million people – largely starving – but for the military and the elites – isolated from the world – and super-nationalist about the Kim ruling dynasty.

So the transition was underway – presumably – with the ‘great successor’ Kim Jong-eun – the youngest son of Kim Jong-il – moving the pieces in an elaborate dance to solidify his shaky control of the government, party and military.

Uncertainty was the watchword all around.  While Kim Jong-il had died Saturday, the announcement was held back till – as I said – around noon on Monday.  Immediately meetings around the region began.  The Korean President Lee Myung-bak reassured his people to go about their business calmly.  While the Korean military heightened vigilance, unlike 1994 (when Kim Jong-il’s father died),  the government did not place the Korean military on high alert.

So here we were in Seoul in a country that had achieved remarkable success – great economic growth and prosperity, heightened international status and a member of the G20 – waiting for events from the ‘hermit state’ – it was weird.

And I was on my way back to North America.

Image credit:  Alan Alexandroff looking toward the DPRK