.jpg) Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at Asia Foundation |
Staff Reporter
If North Korea conducts a successful father-to-son succession or establishes a collective leadership system, relations between Pyongyang and Washington would not undergo great changes, a leading North Korea watcher said.
Since the North's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il reportedly suffered a stroke in August last year, rumors have had it that the secretive state would likely be led by his third son, Jong-un, or a collective leadership of military forces and Communist Party officials.
Scott Snyder, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation, said the North's recent moves to strengthen the National Defense Commission and design new constitutional arrangements appear to seek a "conservative and inward-focused" leadership.
"Such a leadership would continue to focus on consolidating internal political control and on utilizing nuclear weapons pursuits to extract economic benefits from the international community," he said in his contribution to the Washington Quarterly, a journal on international affairs published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The United States is expected to put continuous pressure on the reclusive state to give up its nuclear ambition but the fundamental differences between the two sides would likely persist, he added.
Snyder also suggested another possible scenario for the succession: a contested succession in which various factions compete for leadership.
He said that "deep institutional and interpersonal rivalries" might emerge as part of an all-out competition for political power.
"The contested succession scenario poses the greatest possibility that external powers might be drawn into possible conflict if North Korea's neighbors perceive various factions as distinctly favorable to their own interests," he added.
The scenario points at a situation in which North Korea would collapse without a clear successor capable of re-imposing political order.
In this case, South Korea is presumably the natural candidate to take over and reestablish stability in the North, effectively "achieving Korean reunification" in the process, he said.
Snyder stressed, however, the challenges left behind by the outgoing regime would likely overwhelm the capacities of any single state.
"In this context, the U.S.-ROK alliance may well become more important to South Korea to provide the security necessary to ensure that neighbors do not take political advantage while South Korea is consumed with the tasks," he said.
Kim Jong-il took over the country in 1994, following the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea.
ksy@koreatimes.co.kr
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