Another article on the recent visit. This one is also briefly discussing possible future events following a regime change.
Pyongyang's New Leader for the Old Guard
North Korea's elites prepare for a new regime they hope will look at lot like the current one.
AUGUST 29, 2010 - By ANDREI LANKOV
Kim Jong Il's apparent trip to China last week has excited more speculation over succession planning for the ailing North Korean dictator. That trip was widely interpreted as a way to introduce Kim's youngest son, Kim Jong Eun, to the leadership of Pyongyang's most important ally. But that is not necessarily the most important step in this process. Far more interesting may be the move afoot within Pyongyang to establish the younger Kim as the unquestioned next in line.
A few weeks ago the North Korean authorities announced that
in September the ruling Korean Workers Party will hold a conference—essentially, a simplified version of the Party Congress. Such conferences are few and far between. The last Party conference took place in 1966 and the last Party congress met in 1980. [...]
An extraordinary gathering generally is convened only to announce an extraordinary decision—after all,
the last Party Congress was convened in 1980 to announce the anointment of Kim Jong Il as heir-apparent to his father. [...]
This will be a high-stakes moment for the regime.
A change of leader is bound to produce expectations of other changes. Indeed some major news outlets already speculate that Swiss-educated Kim Jong Eun
might initiate some Chinese-style reforms. He is young, merely 27 or 28 years old, and has spent much of his time outside the country—all factors that could suggest a greater willingness to reform. But do not hold your breath.
The young man appears to be favored by many within the regime precisely because he is the least likely person to change anything—in the short term, at least.
His apparent weaknesses are his greatest selling point so far as other leaders within the regime are concerned. As a candidate he perfectly fits the old guard, those people who now run the country together with Kim Jong Il. If Kim Jong Il is going to die soon, his youngest son, being weak, embarrassingly young and lacking a power base of his own, is almost certain to become a puppet. Whatever he secretly thinks about his country's future, for the first few years of his reign he will have no choice but to obediently sign the policy papers drafted by the same people who have prepared such papers for his father.
Indeed, there are signs as the succession process unfolds that those currently in the upper echelons of the regime are taking steps to protect their positions. A car crash recently killed Ri Che Kang, Kim Jong Il's deputy for Party affairs (North Korea has almost no traffic, but a surprising number of high-level officials die in car accidents). If this was an assassination, it could have been a result of jockeying for positions within the elite.
In a more clear-cut sign of power positioning, a North Korean rubber-stamping parliament held an unusual emergency session where Chang Song Taek, Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law, was promoted to become the deputy chairman of the National Defense Commission, essentially making him a vice-president.
The contours of a new power system are emerging.
The old guard, probably presided over by Mr. Chang,
will supervise a young and obedient prince. What that old guard wants is simply more of the same.
They believe that North Korea, facing a rich and powerful South, cannot survive Chinese-style reform. The existence of the "dirty rich neighbor" whose population
speaks the same language makes North Korea's situation very different from that of China. In the peculiar case of North Korea, an attempted reform is likely
to lead not to China-style economic boom but to an East German-style collapse. The top elite also understand that in such a case they will loose everything, including, perhaps, their freedom. Hence their strong drive to keep things unchanged.
This does not mean that these efforts to preserve the status quo will succeed. Internecine hatreds and rivalries might surface, with power struggles destabilizing the regime from the top down. The young dictator might become annoyed with the old guard, or vice versa. The probability of dramatic events happening in Pyongyang is certainly increasing.
The major goal of the North Korean elite now is to drive this probability down. The new power structure is being designed to keep things unchanged, and on balance it is likely, but by no means certain, to work. Alas, for the outside world it means more years of nuclear brinksmanship, and for the North Korean people more years of abject poverty.
========================================================================
Some interesting points. (Interesting part about the car accidents)
Nobody has really heared much of Kin Jong Un so far, so his position is probably really weak. Now the question is if the military top brass sees itself strong enough to move ahead without a Kim as leader, if they seek legitimacy in keeping at least new Kims face up and transform into some kind of a Junta like regime, or if the Kims have safeguards in place that will ensure continuation of their stalinist style rule.
And if Un can assert himself, while reform most likely is not really an option in the short run, his intents in the long term will be interesting. I can't imagine NK can go on like that forever, then again it holds out like that for a log time already.
I guess China would really like NK to initiate some similar economic reforms there to stabilie the country in the short to med term. But then a possible reunification still looms. With NK becoming economicly stronger, reunification might actually become more likely, as SK might be more willing to take the then smaller burden of a less underdeveloped NK.
If all that happens, then we have to see how regional players react, most importantly China. If it lets NK go into unity, wich will most likely be south dominated. And I guess it actually can't be anything else. Or if China wants to keep NK in place as a puffer state.
But those things are still years into the future.
