North Korean communist leader Kim Jong-Il is sick but in command, Japanese officials believe.

According to Japan’s prime minister, Kim is probably hospitalized, but conscious and able to make decisions.

Prime Minister Taro Aso told a Parliamentary committee that Kim is “probably in a hospital.”

“Anyway, his condition isn’t good. But we don’t think that he’s in a state where he’s incapable of making any decisions at all,” Aso said.

“Our understanding is that if that were the case, we would be seeing different developments,” he added.

Haruki Wada, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, visited Pyongyang recently and he agreed with his prime minster.

“I firmly believe Chairman Kim Jong-Il is sick. However, seeing how he was able to lead and give instructions in the negotiations with the United States, I came to conclude his health is still okay,” Wada told a news conference.

“Of course, the regime is hiding information from the local public. But everyone (in Pyongyang) knows that Mr. Kim Jong-Il did not come to the parade on September 9,” Wada said

“So people have a sense that something is happening. But it did not appear in the city that people are seriously worried,” he concluded.

Wada added that he was sure that if Kim died “the commission will succeed in responsibility. The regime will not collapse.”

That is, in the long term, bad news for North Koreans themselves of course, but good news for the region itself, at least in the short to mid term. Kim and before him his father have ruled the country for decades, establishing a highly authoritarian regime. If they would disappear, and if their key allies and supporters would not be able to establish their authority, the country would collapse, possibly resulting in tremendous chaos, infecting and influencing the other countries in the region.

Then again, it is certainly not in the West or the region’s interest to keep the communist regime alive for decades to come. A policy has to be adopted that aims at the end of the communist regime in, say, 10 years time, albeit without surrendering the country to massive instability.