Dictatorship in transition

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Attendance of Kim Jong-un at North Korean conference uncertain

North Korea’s first Workers’ Party conference in 44 years is being hailed as 'historic.' Few know what will actually happen, even if heir apparent Kim Jong-un makes his public debut.





Party delegates from rural areas arrive to attend a meeting of the ruling Worker's Party of North Korea in Pyongyang September 26.
KCNA /Reuters




By Donald Kirk, Correspondent / September 27, 2010
Seoul, South Korea Excitement surrounding the first North Korea’s Workers’ Party conference in 44 years is building to what analysts expect will be a climax Tuesday of rhetoric and celebrations in Pyongyang.

Still, It seems few people know what actually will happen on an occasion that the North Korean media has said will be “historic.”

The most that Suh Jae-jean, president of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, can surmise is that “it seems there is a policy shift in North Korean leadership” and “the politburo” of the party “will be reinforced.”

Mr. Suh offers that forecast as a hedge against widespread reports that the sole purpose of the conference is to promote 20-something Kim Jong-un as the chosen successor of his father, Kim Jong-il, who came to power in July 1994 after the death of his father, the long-ruling Kim Il-sung.
“There will be uncertainty,” says Suh, avoiding a specific forecast. “The political shift that’s coming will open a Pandora’s box. We should be fully prepared for what’s happening on the Korean peninsula.”

Suh sees North Korea submerged under problems ranging from the failing economy to the aftermath of the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette the Cheonan in March. Pyongyang denied any role in the sinking, which a South Korean investigation blamed on a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine, but Suh believes the episode has caused serious problems for the regime.
It’s “created a lot of tension with South Korea and the United States and even with China,” he says, even though China steadfastly refuses to endorse the South Korean investigation. “It’s brought a lot of shame from the international community.”

The sinking has also resulted in major South Korean and American military war games. This week, 10 United States and South Korean warships, including two American destroyers and a submarine, are staging antisubmarine exercises in the Yellow Sea near where the Cheonan went down.

The North Korean media denounce the exercises as “provocations” and “preparations for war,” but the need for a party conference suggests to analysts the dire straits into which the country is falling.

Whether Kim Jong-un will be introduced in public, whether he will be seen in a lineup of new members of the politburo or the party central committee, or whether his name will appear in the North Korean media seems to be anyone’s guess. He’s said to have been mentioned in a message that North Korea’s Foreign Ministry sent to North Korean diplomatic missions, and mid-level military officers are believed to have been told of his importance, but none of that guarantees his public debut.


“Maybe we will hear his name,” says Choi Jin-wook, a senior research fellow at the Korean Institute of National Unification. Mr. Choi is more confident about chances for seeing Kim Jong-un's father at the conference. “Kim Jong-il will show up tomorrow,” he says, even though the Dear Leader is reportedly suffering from a number of ailments.

Banners are flying high in Pyongyang proclaiming the conference, and a parade may be in the offing, according to Daily NK, an Internet service here, but there is more to resolve than just Kim Jong-un’s succession.

Whether he makes an appearance, in fact, may not be nearly so important as concern over the meaning of the conference in terms of North Korea’s worsening economic and social problems.

“The system is weaker and more unstable,” says Lee Yoo-jin, professor at Sookmyung University here. “We are talking more and more about preparing for collapse of the regime.” Still, he adds, “As long as China supports North Korea, it will muddle through.”

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5 key people to watch in North Korea

Donald Kirk, Correspondent

The struggle to name a successor to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il appears likely to climax in a historic conference next week.

The conference, the first in 44 years, is slated for Sept. 28. Debate among North Korea’s leaders over anointment of Mr. Kim’s third son, Kim Jong-un, is widely believed to have delayed the meeting.

Just because delegates will be gathering for the conference is no guarantee that it will end in announcement of a leadership lineup. Whatever the outcome, it is certain to provide fodder for speculation about the future of North Korea after Kim leaves the scene.

As North Korea heads into this meeting, here is a good idea of who might be in positions of power after Kim Jong-il steps down:


5. Gen. Kim Kyok-sik



Gen. Kim Kyok-sik, in charge of troops in the southwest of North Korea and deemed a total loyalist, is believed to have personally masterminded and ordered the attack in March on the South Korean Navy corvette, the Cheonan, in which 46 South Korean sailors died.

“He may be one of the most trustworthy generals,” says Kim Tae-woo, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses . He’s also one of the youngest, though still in his 60s. Analysts suggest that he might adopt a more independent course once Kim Jong-il steps down – and may not want to support Jang Song-thaek.

General Kim is a former Army chief of staff and was somewhat “demoted” to his present post, but clearly has support where it counts.


4. Kim Jong-un



Although Kim Jong-un is assumed somehow to be in line to succeed his father, neither his name nor his photograph have appeared in public in North Korea.

Kim Jong-un, who is 27, might be chosen as a front for others. He is the second son of Kim Jong-il and Ko Young-hee, a dancer who passed away in 2004. It is reported widely that he got a secondary education at a private school in Bern, Switzerland, where he was apparently a fan of the National Basketball Association. He is said to speak English, French, and German, and to be a hard competitor.

When he returned to North Korea, he was educated at Kim Il-sung University, named for his long-ruling grandfather, and has reportedly been given a mid-level post as an “inspector” at the National Defense Commission, the center of power in North Korea that is chaired by his father, Kim Jong-il.

Though he is thought to have been educated abroad, he is also considered to be an inexperienced, untested young man. Kim Jong-un may become a secretary of the Workers’ Party, of which Kim Jong-il is general secretary, or be given a minor post to suggest he’s training for bigger things.
If named as his father's successor, he will inherit a nation with nuclear weapons and a plethora of problems: economy, hunger, and tense relations with South Korea and the US.


3. Kim Kyong-hui



Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il’s younger sister, married to Kim's unofficial No. 2, Jang Song-thaek, is also a strong contender for power in her own right. Jang and Kim Kyong-hui reportedly met at university in North Korea and studied together in Moscow. In charge of light industry for the party, she’s been photographed with Kim Jong-il, as well as her husband, on frequent visits to industrial cities and military bases over the past year or two.

A member of the central committee of the party, she has a close relationship with Kim Jong-il and is assumed to have been instrumental in her husband’s renaissance as an important figure. It’s possible that Jang and his wife might wind up in senior party posts, but analysts wonder if military leaders might object to power falling into the hands of people who have never had significant military experience.


2. Jang Song-thaek



Jang Song-thaek is often cited as a possible “regent” if Kim Jong-un rises to a top post after Kim Jong-il passes on. Jang owes his power in large measure to the influence of his wife, Kim Jong-il’s younger sister, Kim Kyong-hui.


Mr. Jang rose through the ranks of the Workers’ Party but disappeared from view for several years. Then in 2006 he came back on the radar after the death of Kim Jong-ill's wife, Ko Young-hee, who may have viewed him as a threat to the rise of her son Kim Jong-un.

Jang, however, was not known to have had military experience when he was named to the national defense commission and then to the post of commission vice chairman in June. Now viewed as the second most-powerful man in the country, he accompanied Kim Jong-il to Beijing in May when both of them met China’s President Hu Jintao.



1. General O Kuk-ryol

General O Kuk-ryol, a former air force commander, is sometimes said to be the second most-powerful man in North Korea after Kim Jong-il, whom he has known from his youth.

In his late 70s, he has served as chief of the staff of the Army. He lost out in a dispute with another top general, then bounced back as head of the defense bureau of the Workers’ Party, a post that may make him a key player in the upcoming party conference.

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North Korea unveils first photo of Kim Jong-un as heir apparent

North Korea ended years of speculation by releasing its first photo of a chubby-cheeked Kim Jong-un, now a four-star general and the presumptive heir to his father, Kim Jong-il.





Kim Jong-un (front row, 2nd R), youngest son of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il, claps during a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party in Pyongyang September 28, in this image taken from video released on September 30.

By Donald Kirk, Correspondent / September 30, 2010
Seoul, South Korea He’s chubby-cheeked and serious, wearing a dark blue Mao suit. He's sandwiched between two elderly generals, his father one general away on his left.

Thus Kim Jong-un, the heir presumptive to power over North Korea, made his photo debut on Thursday after years of speculation about when North Koreans, and the rest of the world, would get a glimpse of him.
The photograph, released by North Korea Thursday, was promptly displayed on television and in newspapers in South Korea as proof positive that the young man, in his late 20s, is definitely on the fast track to the job held by his ailing father. Its dissemination came two days after Kim Jong-il made him a general along with five others, including his aunt, and one day after he was named a vice chairman of the military commission of the Workers’ Party.
RELATED: 5 KEY PEOPLE TO WATCH IN NORTH KOREA
Then, hours after release of the still photograph of the leadership lineup, North Korea state TV broadcast video of the conference showing Kim Jong-un in the front row, applauding along with everyone else in the large hall. His father, on stage in front, acknowledged the cheers, applauding diffidently in return, smiling before the camera again focused on the son.

“They want to show he’s healthy,” says Kim Bum-soo, publisher of a conservative political magazine in Seoul. “And they want to show his father is healthy, too.”

The image of Kim Jong-un as a specimen of good health is clear, but there’s no disguising his father's fragility. Kim Jong-il looks frail and weak as a result of the stroke that he suffered in August 2008 and a host of other illnesses that help explain the need to elevate his son to high positions on the road to power.

The son, who was named to the central committee of the party at its conference of delegates on Tuesday, is still not a member of the all-powerful party Politburo, but he’s surrounded in the photograph by Politburo members.

In between Kim Jong-un and his father sits Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, chief of staff of the armed forces, his chest ablaze with medals. On Kim’s right sit two more generals, equally bedecked with medals. The message seems clear: The armed forces dominate the country, and the country’s military leaders are going to protect Kim as he prepares to take over whenever his father leaves the scene.

North Korea’s hard-line message came through hours before the photograph was released, when talks between North and South Korean military officers got nowhere, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry. North Korea had requested the talks, the first between officers on both sides in two years, in the truce village of Panmunjom on the line between the two Koreas.

A defense spokesman said, however, that the North again rejected South Korea’s charge that a North Korean submarine fired the torpedo that sank the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in March, with a loss of 46 sailors.

And in the early hours here, Wednesday in New York, North Korea shocked the world with an extremely tough message delivered by North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Pak Kil-yon. Mr. Pak, who is a vice foreign minister, said North Korea’s nuclear stockpile “should be strengthened” while the United States had aircraft carriers in the region.
Without a nuclear deterrent, said Pak, in a message that seemed carefully planned to coincide with Kim Jong-un’s emergence as a powerful figure, “the Korean Peninsula would have been turned into a war field scores of times.”

But the real message Thursday was in the photograph showing Kim Jong-un as a leader in training.

“He looks sad,” says Choi Jin-wook, veteran analyst of North Korea at the Korean institute of National Unification, “but he’s definitely going to the top rank.”

The proof, he says, is in the picture.
“The point is the people around him,” says Mr. Choi. “They are Politburo members and generals. They are guarding him.”

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27? I see a baby faced kid who's had a silver spoon his entire life. He is going to end up being a frontman controlled and owned by the Military.

[Ryan Ruck]

In that last picture, doesn't look like Kim Jong-un has missed too many meals!

[American Patriot]

Nope. Looks like NONE of those guys miss meals

[Toad]

Yea, he appears to have weathered the constant famines in N. Korea pretty (burp) well.