Oddities

Path to succession: do not jump the gun on Kim Jong Un

June 2, 2009 # 2:30 pm # North Korea # No Comment

A flood of news reports have come down the pike of the Pyongyang regime naming Kim Jong Un as the successor to his ailing father, Kim Jong Il. While the news reports are grabbing to the reader, all the articles I have read thus far admit the sources of these “confirmations” cannot be verified. And with good reason; I do not see one shred of evidence to suggest Kim Jong Un has been named.

There are confirmations from the mouth of the regime itself the top posts have been reshuffled and Jang Song Thaek being named in the hierarchy of the NDC along with a “constitution” change, these indeed go give pause and may point to changes.

Note “may“. Not “will“.

I will be the first to tell you I am just as “excited” to see another shift in power, and am watching the events as closely as anybody else interested in the DPRK. These events do not happen everyday, and seeing how the regime works from the thick soup is interesting as anything I have ever studied. On the other hand, I am even more excited to see the end of the Kim family cult. Just like the succession issue, there is little to no hard evidence to suggest that is happening either. With that, what will convince me the successor has been named?

Simple. Once the son appears along side his father and mainstream propaganda starts to appear, then I will call it a confirmation. A good article about this very skepticism is found here.

The fervor is understandable considering the rising tensions, the TD-2 test, the nuke test, the “withdrawl” of the 1953 cease-fire, the tensions along the NLL, the increased rhetoric from all the players along with China. While it is possible these increased tensions and military muscle flexing could very well indicate the old man is trying to cement his legacy while paving the way to make his kid legitimate as well. Again, these are just guesses, but one could look to the former succession to perhaps glean some indicators on how the next handover could work. The big issue with this approach is, Kim Jong Il does not appear to run his regime and kingdom like his old man despite the propaganda that claims otherwise.

The article makes some good points:

However, there has been no official announcement from Pyongyang, which is a source of skepticism among some analysts.

Kim Jong-Un’s name has not cropped up in official propaganda and — in defiance of predictions of many in South Korea — he was not named on any ballots in the March elections to Pyongyang’s Supreme People’s Assembly, a rubber-stamp parliament.

There were unconfirmed reports, however, that he has been named to the National Defense Commission, the most powerful body in the country.

I did not see any confirmations when digging further about the lower posting on Jong Un in the NDC. Some reports were so convincing he was named in the lower rungs of the NDC, I thought it was true. However, when I got the PDF files of the power structures of the regime after the 12th SPA, there was no Kim Jong Un anywhere. This only goes to show how careful one has to be careful not to jump the gun, and this advice is a reminder for myself than anybody else.

If anything, could Jang Song Theak be the named successor instead of Kim’s kid? The name has been brought up before, and with the elevation of his brother in law in the NDC, appearing along side him during on-the-spot guidance tours and regular mentions in the propaganda press. It seems more credible considering more things have cropped up about him and Kim Jong Un. Yes, it sounds pretty crazy, because Kim Jong Il has not named him as a “semi-equal”, any paintings of Jang appear in the street or a portrait added to the obligatory ones of the father and son in buildings.

“The Pyongyang regime places a lot of value on the credibility of its media and propaganda apparatus: This is why they admit that they had a famine in the 1990s, and why they now admit that South Korea is richer than North Korea,” said Brian Myers, a specialist on North Korean propaganda at Dongseo University. “What would they have to gain from keeping the succession secret? They just don’t hide information like this. Kim Jong-il started to be groomed from the early 1970s.”

Link added is mine. There is the kicker. Yes, it will take many years to convince the population to start adoring a new leader. They simply will not accept a new leader without some legitimacy, or more accurately in my opinion, the heat getting turned up like the frog in water. The first succession took over two decades, which is another major problem in the equation as I have stated many times before. The same article cites some reiterating the same thing:

A former U.S. diplomat who asked not to be named because he still deals with North Korea told The Washington Times the succession process has begun.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that he has been ‘named,’ only that the North Koreans have begun to build the necessary ‘myths’ that will be required to foster loyalty, build legitimacy, and establish his credibility and credentials as a future leader,” the former diplomat said.

And that is precisely the process, and that process takes a long time. While North Koreans appear to follow the leader without question (although some reports indicate otherwise), they are not stupid. I am sure Kim and his propaganda cronies know this as well. Now here comes the next huge issue — does Kim Jong Il have enough time to secure a smooth succession? In my opinion, it is going to be dicey. However, people worried about the first succession, and the Kim cult is humming right along. Which is why it is very important not to jump the gun either:

“The South Koreans may be jumping the gun on this,” said Michael Breen, author of a biography of Kim Jong-il. “The North Koreans are not just going to come out and say, ‘Here is the new leader,’ or people would say, ‘Well I accepted the king, then I accepted the prince, now do I accept the son of prince?’ That would show they are a feudal monarchy.”

Kim Tae-woo of the Korea Institute of Defense Analysis said he had “heard many things about Kim Jong-un but nothing official. Senior North Koreans know that if they try a succession prematurely, the system could collapse.“

Which goes to show things are never cut and dried until the word comes from the mouth of the regime itself. Do not worry, once it is made official, there will be more than enough to write and wonder about.

If the regime lasts that long, goes that path, or goes another way completely. Right now, it is a guessing game, and this guessing game is all we have when looking in the murkiness that is North Korea.

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