North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il died in December. He apparently has been succeeded by his youngest son, Kim Jong-un. The death and succession demonstrated once again that North Korea must be the gold-standard for secretiveness. The death of Kim Jong-il was not even known outside North Korea for several days, to the extent that a senior retired Japanese intelligence official remarked publicly on his country’s intelligence failure. The North Koreans fired several missiles the day Kim Jong-il died, but no one seems to have associated those firings with that event. Yet the whole point of the firings was probably to warn other governments not to exploit any perceived weakness. Kim Jong-il had clearly been at the brink of death for some months, but it seems that no one outside North Korea had any way of knowing more than that.
As for Kim Jong-un, despite his youth he was selected for succession by his father. In a culture that reveres age, choosing the youngest son seems extraordinary. The supposed reasons are that the older son, the heir apparent, was dropped when he secretly attempted to visit Japan, and the middle son was rejected as effeminate. When Kim Jong-un was selected, it was claimed without much evidence that he had a sadistic streak (in which case one might wonder how that would be evident in comparison with his father). Senior North Koreans stated that their new ruler had affirmed his loyalty to the principle of “military first” announced by Kim Jong-il. North Korea has an enormous army, which subsists largely on food aid supplied from outside meant for the starving North Korean populace.
Kim Jong-un has been associated with North Korean special forces and thus with the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan and the shelling of the island of Yeonpyeong. Whether this association has any basis in reality is not clear, given the one great success of the North Korean regime, maintaining its security. In North Korean terms, the association would prove that Kim Jong-un is a worthy (read vicious) leader capable of dealing with the South Koreans.
No other communist country has adopted what amounts to a hereditary monarchy. Syria did so (the current dictator is the former dictator’s son), and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq would probably have done so, but the usual pattern has been a hidden free-for-all in the aftermath of the dictator’s death. Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union is the most similar to North Korea, and on Stalin’s death there was a quiet but very intense fight for power. The main loser, Lavrenti Beria, was shot. Other losers were demoted or forcibly retired. Restraint among the winners was most likely an attempt to change Stalin’s practice of killing all possible rivals (potential successors had been under threat of execution).
Kim Jong-un can probably take comfort from the Syrian example. When Hafez al-Assad died, no one expected much from his son Bashar, who had been studying ophthalmology in London, hardly preparation for the bloodthirsty business of dictatorship (the older son, who had been groomed for succession, had died in an automobile accident). Yet he has proved himself in suppressing the Syrian version of the “Arab Spring,” at least until now.
On Shaky Ground?
Apparently the death of Kim Jong-il came too quickly for him to cement his son’s position completely. Only now are many of the usual worshipful titles and anecdotes about Kim Jong-un being publicized, and there is speculation that some senior military officer may function as regent. Since there is almost certainly no formal mechanism for hereditary succession in North Korea, apart from the cults of personality built around Kim Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung (the first North Korean dictator), it would appear that there is no place for a regent alongside the 27- or 28-year old Kim Jong-un. Whether Kim Jong-un survives may depend on the personal loyalty (if any) of his special forces. Some observers may imagine that the slavish cult of Kim Jong-il guarantees the younger Kim’s position, but that cult is not too different from Stalin’s—or Mao Zedong’s—and in each case the cult guaranteed nothing at all.
None of this is particularly good news. Kim Jong-un likely has to do something spectacular to solidify his position. Only a war or quasi-war would seem to fit. The North Korean population is starving, but nothing that Kim can do about that, while remaining in power, would help with those around him. Mass support of any kind, however generated, would not matter much—it is the result, not the cause, of a leader’s power in North Korea. Moreover, as long as the other sons are alive, an ambitious official could deploy one of them as the more legitimate ruler, claiming that Kim Jong-un’s succession was engineered and illegitimate.
The easiest way to place another son in power would be to let Kim Jong-un fail in a military adventure. More bizarre things have happened in communist governments at and around the time of succession. For example, after Beria was shot it was announced that he had been a British spy since 1920 (no one seems to have worried about the light this would have cast on Stalin’s judgment in making him head of the secret police).
It is doubtful that Kim Jong-un has any interest in easing the suffering of his people, since there is little chance that they can or will organize a revolt. Neither Russia nor China can happily contemplate his collapse, so both will continue to arm North Korea and also to make up, to some considerable extent, for what North Koreans cannot or will not produce.
Kim Jong-un can also look to the Cuban example. Even after the Russians could no longer prop up Fidel Castro’s regime, Cubans could not and did not free themselves. No outside power presented a credible military threat, so it was not necessary to earn foreign exchange to pay for such military necessities as spares for airplanes. There is now some opening, but it is not clear how far it will go, and Cuba was never as repressive as North Korea. Above all, as far as Kim Jong-un and other leaders are concerned, North Korea is successful as it is. Their power is insured, and the ideology behind it seems to be universally accepted.
China’s Concern
There is only one real issue. Starvation and discontent in North Korea have led many to flee into China. The Chinese try to force them back, but acknowledge that they are a problem. If, as seems likely, the Chinese economy slows, then masses of refugees become a serious matter. The Chinese are painfully aware that unless conditions in North Korea improve, the refugees will keep coming. Even a China in recession is a world better than North Korea. On the other hand, the Chinese also appear determined to prevent a North Korean collapse, which would place a non-communist South Korea on their border. For the Chinese, some radical change in North Korean internal policy would seem in order.
China has another problem with North Korea. In recent years there has been a subterranean fight among Chinese and Korean historians over the appropriate ownership of Manchuria, an extremely valuable industrial area. Presumably the bulk of Korean refugees in China now live just over the border, in Manchuria. If the Chinese succeeded in turning North Korea into a more livable country (perhaps with Chinese-style economics), maybe those refugees would choose to remain in China but would continue to feel Korean. A new (or modified) Korean regime might use the country’s history as a unifying theme, and that might well include a claim to land across the border.
China currently supplies much of what sustains the North Korean economy, but Russia supplies much of the weaponry (and the oil). That split limits Chinese influence in Korea. The Russians are well aware that the Chinese consider the border between the two countries illegitimate. Chinese power is growing, and the Russians are undoubtedly finding it difficult to maintain their own military. Recently an oil pipeline opened between Siberia and China, and the Russians celebrated initial deliveries—and complained that the Chinese were short-changing them to the tune of $100 million.
A cynic would say that the Russians felt compelled to accept that because the Chinese will soon be able to take the oil area by force. Many Chinese already live in Siberia, and the Russian population as a whole is declining. To what extent do the Russians begin to see the wild North Koreans not as a force against the evil capitalist world, but as a way of reminding the Chinese that they too have territorial problems, and that pressure in Siberia may not be a particularly good idea?