UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: (Foreign language spoken)

LIM: While South Korea has been reexamining its ties, China has not been wasting time. As this news report describes, Beijing's been busy honoring the late North Korean leader, despite the sometimes fractious relationship during his lifetime.

All of China's top nine leaders - from President Hu Jintao downwards - have made the pilgrimage to the North Korean embassy in Beijing. China too was the first country to offer condolences following Kim's death.

Hahm Chai-bong, the director of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, believes Beijing's playing a geopolitical game.

HAHM CHAI-BONG: Even during Kim Jong Il's time, we know that there was real no love lost between Chinese and North Koreans. The Chinese seem to be making very, very clear that they're not going to make the kind of mistake they did with Kim Jong Il. And they're going to make sure that Kim Jong Un feels grateful towards China for supporting him in a period of very difficult transition. So I think that's one of the reasons why the Chinese are going out of their way to show respect and to assure Kim Jong Un.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: (Foreign language spoken)

LIM: Another sore point for the South has been its failure to know about Kim's death ahead of this official announcement on North Korean state television. It's not clear whether China was given an early warning. But for many here, this failure of South Korean intelligence highlights glaring security weaknesses on the Korean peninsula.

Here's Hahm Chai-bong again.

CHAI-BONG: It just goes to show if the top brass in North Korea makes a decision to launch some kind of a major attack or something, we just won't know until it actually happens. There's just going to be no way we will be able to take any kind of preventative measure because we just won't know in time.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: (Unintelligible)

LIM: Despite the current calm at the DMZ, the security situation in Asia has changed forever, and the geopolitical shakeout is only just beginning. An unknown 20-something is now at the very least nominally in charge of a nuclear-armed state. His father may have been predictable in his unpredictability. But how Kim Jong Un will act - or even what he's thinking - nobody can predict.

Louisa Lim, NPR News, Seoul.