Kim Jong-un’s challenge: economic or political?

BEIJING — With the death of his father, prince Kim Jong-un now has to prematurely play the role of king.

By Sunny Lee

BEIJING — With the death of his father, prince Kim Jong-un now has to prematurely play the role of king.

Where North Korea goes from here depends largely on what kind of challenges it faces and how the young leader handles them.

The Korea Times talked to two prominent experts on North Korea, Abraham Kim, vice-president of the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C., and Yang Xiyu, former director of Office for Korean Peninsula Issues at the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing.

Kim in Washington believes the challenges Kim Jong-un faces are mainly political, while Yang in Beijing sees the success of Jong-un’s fledgling leadership lies in how he fixes the North’s hobbling economy.

Kim, who formerly worked as an international political-risk assessment analyst, characterized the current state of North Korea as a “bad case scenario,” citing Kim’s young age and inexperience in politics, his weak political base and support group. He also points out that the power transition process has not been completed.

“The leadership transition period is the most vulnerable period for any kind of autocratic government,” said Kim, setting the tone for the degree of challenges Kim Jong-un is currently under.

“An autocratic government is predisposed to favor status quo. For example, its leadership seldom changes. That’s why you see very old officials in their 70s and even 80s in North Korea or in the former Soviet Union. It’s centered around a particular individual or a certain political structure that rarely changes,” said Kim.

“In an autocratic system, you can go an entire generation without a leadership change. But when the leader dies, it’s the most vulnerable period. We saw this when Stalin died, when Mao Zedong died. It’s the same for North Korea. All of a sudden, the whole leadership structure is thrown into a fluidity of environment that they are not used to,” Kim said.

People are by nature opportunists, said Kim. “When their leader dies, they know that this is the time to change the system or upgrade their status or get rid of people they don’t like.”

According to Kim, North Korea is undergoing a “rare opportunity” when the leadership can change, making it a very “delicate period.” And the way the new leader handles the situation can become a disaster for people.

For example, when Kim Jong-il met his own delicate moment with the sudden death of his father Kim Il-sung, he handled it by a massive purging of people who were powerful and therefore could pose a threat to him.

“Now that the senior Kim is out of the picture, there is greater uneasiness and fluidity of the situation. Now is the time for opportunists and factions to move to secure power. There is the possibility of purging and mysterious ‘car accidents,’” said Kim.

“Car accidents” have been cited as a particularly favored way for the Kim family to remove rivals, especially senior officials.

Given Jong-un’s reported weak power base, some security experts believe, there may be a much larger scale of purging in store in North Korea, as part of Jong-un’s effort to consolidate his power.

The idea of “collective leadership” has been the most entertained scenario by North Korea watchers as a possible leadership format in the post-Kim era, which can compensate Jong-un’s political naivety, as the junior Kim will be surrounded by “advisers” and “guardians” and “care-takers.”

Kim at the Korea Economic Institute rejects the view. “Kim Il-sung had a one-man leadership. Kim Jong-il also had a one-man leadership. The idea of “collective leading” is unprecedented in North Korea and goes against the previous ruling system that has governed North Korea so far.”

Kim foresees purging, blood-shedding and defection of ranking officials to South Korea, due to Jong-un’s vulnerable leadership position, which will drive him to resort to violence to eliminate rivals.

Yang disagreed. “I don’t think the stability of Jong-un’s leadership is a problem,” he said. “Although the power transition hasn’t been completed, the publicity of the new leader has already been made in North Korea.”

Yang continued: “I think the fundamental challenge for Kim Jong-un lies in economy. If he is able to focus on the economy, North Korea should be able to build a sustainable economy, not relying on outside food aid.”

Feeding people will be particularly important next year, the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung. It is the year North Korea has told its people when it would become a “prosperous” and strong country.

In recent months, North Korea has been unusually eager to return to the stalled six-party talks, a multi-national consultation platform engineered to resolve the tension surrounding Pyongyang’s nuclear drive.

According to Yang, the very reason North Korea has recently been very eager to resume the six-party talks is to create a “favorable external environment” so that North Korea can focus on its internal priority of improving its economy.

There are some predictions that during the initial period under Jong-un’s new leadership, North Korea will be conservative, internationally withdrawn or even may resort to military provocations to divert its internal tensions, all in an attempt to consolidate his political power.

Yang again disagrees. “I think the new leadership will continue to make an effort to create a good external environment,” said Yang, “because they need to focus on their domestic economic field.”

In North Korea’s stated national goal of becoming a “strong and prosperous country” in 2012, some pundits say North Korea has already accomplished the goal of becoming a “strong” country because it has nuclear weapons. That leaves it now to focus on the other half of the goal: to become a “prosperous” country by zeroing on the economic area. This view supports Yang’s argument.

With the sudden death of Kim Jong-il, it’s now unclear when (or whether) the six-party talks will resume.

But Yang is confident that the talks will be convened. “It’s not a matter of whether it will be held or not. It’s a matter of when,” he said.

Yet it is also true that North Korea’s outreach will require the internal political stability under Jong-un’s leadership. Here, Kim in Washington remains pessimistic.

Kim anticipates more political uncertainty and power jockeying. He sees the current stage of North Korea like a duck swimming effortlessly in the river, but whose legs under the surface are making busy movements. One of the signs of such “under the water” struggle, Kim said, can be gleaned from the funeral roster.

The funeral roster is widely regarded as the “pecking order” of North Korea’s power hierarchy. On it, Jang Song-thack, who is touted as Jong-un’s guardian and the real man “in charge,” is listed as 19th.

“Jang should have been very high up on the roster as a caretaker for Jong-un. But he is not. We can see a certain sign that something is going on here,” said Kim.