Category: Kim Jong Un

Andrei Lankov on China and Kim Jong-un’s purges

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The following are excerpts of a RFA interview with Andrei Lankov, a native of the former Soviet Union who lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s: 

RFA: What has been the extent of [Kim Jong-un’s] purges?
Lankov: He’s been purging not only military officers but also security officials on a scale not seen in North Korea since the late 1960s, when his grandfather Kim Il Sung was consolidating power. … It means that he wants to be taken seriously. And it means that he wants a docile and obedient military.

RFA: We’ve seen reports of some senior officials defecting to South Korea. Do all of these purges indicate instability at the top of the Kim regime?
Lankov: The common assumption at the moment is that the purges point to instability. I’m not so sure about that….But if the current policy continues, it might increase the chances of a military coup.

RFA: Let’s talk about China. One of the officials executed in 2013 was Jang Song Taek, who was Kim’s own uncle. He was accused of being a traitor. This became a source of tensions with China, since the Chinese considered Jang to be a trusted negotiator and go-between. What are some of the other sources of tension?
Lankov: First, China is seriously unhappy about North Korea’s continuing development of nuclear weapons. China absolutely doesn’t want a nuclear North Korea. And some Chinese officials had pinned their hopes on Jang Song Taek as the man who could introduce Chinese-style economic reforms in North Korea. That hasn’t happened. North Korea’s missile launch and nuclear test in 2012 and 2013 were major causes of tension.

RFA: What are some of the other sources of tension?
Lankov: Finally, Xi Jinping may be the first Chinese leader to have only a faint memory of the Korean War. He has no sentimental links with North Korea. And there’s a great deal of mutual dislike on both sides. … many Chinese officials who didn’t grow up with direct experience of the Korean War, such as Xi Jinping himself, consider North Korea to be not a younger brother in arms but a strange, bizarre, irrational, and very stubborn country that creates lots of problems for China.

RFA: Some U.S. experts are disappointed that China hasn’t applied many of the sanctions called for by the U.N. against North Korea following its nuclear test and missile launch. Why does China choose to apply sanctions against only a few North Korean banks or companies but not against many of the others?
Lankov: China has a vested interest in keeping North Korea afloat. China needs a relatively stable North Korea. They don’t want to deal with the fallout from a North Korean collapse, which would likely be a messy situation involving thousands of refugees. They don’t want a North Korea under South Korean control. And North Korea serves for China as a buffer zone against the Americans and South Koreans.

[Excerpts of Radio Free Asia interview]

To date Kim Jong Un has executed 70 officials

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has executed an estimated 70 officials since taking power in late 2011 in a “reign of terror” that far exceeds the bloodshed of his dictator father’s early rule, South Korean officials said Thursday.

An official from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, who refused to be named, citing office rules, confirmed that the spy agency believes the younger Kim has executed about 70 officials but wouldn’t reveal how it obtained the information.

Experts say Kim could be using fear to solidify his leadership, but those efforts could fail if he doesn’t improve the country’s shattered economy.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, at a forum in Seoul, compared Kim Jong Un’s 70 executions with those of his late father, Kim Jong Il, who he said executed about 10 officials during his first years in power.

High-level government purges have a long history in North Korea. To strengthen his power, Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, removed pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese factions within the senior leadership in the years after the 1950-53 Korean War. The high-ranking victims included Pak Hon Yong, formerly the vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the country’s foreign minister, who was executed in 1955 after being accused of spying for the United States.

 [AP]

North Korea: Life in a brainwashed society

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A North Korea defector, Hyeonseo Lee, has revealed in a new book how she was forced to watch her first execution at the age of seven.

Lee and her classmates grew up convinced they lived in the ‘greatest nation on earth’ run by a benevolent god-like leader whom they loved in the way many children love Santa Claus. It wasn’t until she left North Korea at the age of 17 that she began to discover the full horror of the government that had fed her propaganda since birth.

All family life took place beneath the obligatory portraits of North Korea’s revered founder Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il which hung in every home. Failure to clean and look after them was a punishable offence. At supper Lee had to thank ‘Respected Father Leader Kim Il-sung’ for her food before she could pick up her chopsticks.

The faintest hint of political disloyalty was enough to make an entire family – grandparents, parents and children – disappear. ‘Their house would be roped off; they’d be taken away in a truck at night, and not seen again,’ she says.

Public executions were used as a way to keep everyone in line. After Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994 she recalls a spate of executions of people who had not mourned sufficiently. Lee witnessed her first execution at seven.

In the mid-1990s North Korea suffered a famine which killed an estimated one million people. Lee’s first inkling of the crisis came when her mother showed her a letter from a colleague’s sister living in a neighboring province. “By the time you read this the five of us will no longer exist in this world,” it read, explaining that the family were lying on the floor waiting to die after not eating for weeks.

Lee, who still believed she lived in the world’s most prosperous country, was stunned. A few days later she came across a skeletal young mother lying in the street with a baby in her arms. She was close to death, but no one stopped.

Beggars and vagrant children began to appear in the town and corpses turned up in the river. ‘The smell of decomposing bodies was everywhere,’ Lee said, speaking at her book launch in London.

In her book she describes taking a train through a ‘landscape of hell’ to visit a relative. She saw people roaming the countryside ‘like living dead’. In the city of Hamhung she recalled people ‘hallucinating from hunger’ and ‘falling dead in the street’.

The government blamed the famine on US sanctions, but she later learnt it had more to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union which had been subsidizing North Korea with food and fuel.

[Daily Mail]

North Korea the problem child of Asia

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Despite needing Beijing more than anyone else, North Korea, the nuclear-armed problem child of Asia, has frozen out its only real friend.

China’s new ambassador, the high-flying diplomat Li Jinjun, was appointed in mid-March yet has not met North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un nor had his credentials accepted. It is an unprecedented snub from the hermit kingdom to its powerful friend – and the latest sign of a growing impulsivity that has Korea watchers and seasoned diplomats deeply worried.

Stability under the 32-year-old Kim, who took power in late 2011, is shakier than it has been in a long time, prompting fears the Korean peninsula could crumble in ways that cannot be predicted or managed at a time when the region has enough flashpoints to worry about. Speaking of Kim Jong-un, one seasoned Asian diplomat commented, “Kim’s father and grandfather were as tough as you can get, they were ruthless dictators, but they were not reckless. This guy has the same brutality but with more recklessness.”

Determined to stamp his ruthless authority, Kim has shrugged off Beijing’s restraining hand and embarked on bloody purges. This included the execution of his own uncle, Jang Song-thaek, the final straw for Beijing because Jang was the point man on economic co-operation between the two countries. The purges have escalated in recent months.

Pyongyang also abruptly cancelled a planned visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – which would have been the first by a UN leader since 1993. Three weeks earlier, Kim cancelled a planned visit to Moscow – reportedly annoying Vladimir Putin.

China’s biggest worry is that North Korea will collapse and unify with the south in a democratic, pro-Washington state. While Kim’s brutality is probably making some North Korean elites jittery, nobody is game to predict an internal collapse just yet.

[Sydney Morning Herald]

North Korean confirms Hyon Yong Choi put to death for insubordination

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North Korean officials have confirmed that Hyon Yong Choi, the hermit kingdom’s former defense minister, was put to death for “insubordination,” South Korean media outlet YTN reported Monday. YTN uncovered the information after it was relayed from the North Korean embassy in China, according to YTN.

North Korean despot Kim Jong-un was upset with Hyon after he showed “disregard” for the dictator in a meeting, South Korean paper Chosun Ilbo reported. Kim responded in force and executed Hyon “for insubordination and disobeying the party leadership,” UPI writes.

According to the report, Hyon was napping during a meeting, causing Kim to consider the offense one that reached a treasonous level. Chosun Ilbo reported that Hyon would frequently become bored during meetings and would resort to napping as a way to pass the time.

Kim’s dissatisfaction with Hyon reached its climax when the dictator asked his defense minister a question during a meeting and found that Hyon was unresponsive. It was then that Kim concluded that his defense minister must be detained, punished, and later executed, the South Korean paper reported.

Chosun Ilbo reports that Kim’s leadership has become increasingly tyrannical: “The fact that Hyon was executed within days without waiting for approval from the Workers Party, just like former Army chief Ri Yong-ho and [Kim Jong-un’s uncle] Jang Song-taek, demonstrates just how volatile Kim has become.”

[Breitbart]

The rumored reformation of North Korea – Part 1

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While Kim Jong-un is often presented in the Western media as a comical, menacing, and an erratic person, this description is misleading. The young North Korean ruler might have a penchant for bizarre clothes and haircuts, and he may also be prone to outbursts of anger, but his economic policies have been remarkably consistent – until recently.

Soon after his ascent to power, he began to slowly steer his country towards something akin to a market-oriented reformist policy, not unlike the policies of Deng Xiaoping in the early days of the Chinese reformation. Recently, however, the line has changed, and the tempo of reforms has dropped significantly.

The reforms began in 2012 when the country’s agriculture was partially switched to a household-based model. Since 2013, North Korean farmers, who for many decades have worked for fixed rations, received 30 percent of the total harvest. In 2015, that figure is expected to double to 60 percent. The new system has made farmers work harder and take greater responsibility, and the results have been quickly visible: both 2013 and 2014 were marked by bumper harvests. Even a grave drought in the spring of 2014 failed to negatively impact the recovery of North Korean agriculture.

Simultaneously, the North Korean government took measures to attract foreign investments. Some 20-odd special economic zones were created.

The next step was expected to happen this year. State-appointed managers would acquire a level of freedom very similar to that of private entrepreneurs in regular market economies. The new management system was supposed to be implemented across the entire country starting in 2015, with nearly all industrial enterprises switching to the new model. But it did not happen.    Continued

The rumored reformation of North Korea – Part 2

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An acute observer described the current situation in North Korea to the author: “For a couple of years, the North Korean economy resembled a car climbing a steep slope at a good speed. But a few months ago, they switched off the engine, and the car has just begun to slide down the slope.”

Given the highly secretive nature of the North Korean government, one can only guess what made Kim Jong Un and his advisers change their minds. The decision to stop reforms might reflect some internal governmental turmoil, but also may be a result of a sudden change of Kim’s mind-set – indeed, the North Korean dictator is remarkably moody at times, and reforms are wrought with political risk.

It is even possible that the reforms were slowed down in order to better prepare the wider economic landscape for their full-scale implementation: This full switch to the new system could potentially trigger severe inflation, so some kind of preparatory “groundwork” is advisable and possibly even necessary. 

Whatever the reason, the reforms appear to have been stopped, albeit not rolled back. The farmers still receive their share of produce, and some factories work according to the new system, often paying exorbitant salaries to the employees. A miner at the Musan iron mine, where the “experimental enterprise” system is functional, can now easily earn $70 a month, almost 100 times the average nationwide salary of less than a dollar a month.

This gives us reason to hope that sooner or later the reforms will be resumed, and that the current halt is merely provisional. After all, the introduction of household-based agriculture a few years ago followed a similar pattern: The new policies were first announced in June 2012, then shelved, but began to be fully implemented during the spring of 2013.

Nevertheless, the news remains disturbing. If North Korea rejects reforms, it will slide back into a state of stagnation. This will mean life will become even more difficult for North Koreans and will create a great deal of trouble for North Korea’s neighbors. A reforming North Korea has the possibility of survival, while a stagnant and stunted North Korea is inevitably bound to collapse.

[Excerpts from Al Jazeera article by Andrei Lankov, professor of Korean Studies at Kookmin University, Seoul] 

New defense minister for North Korea?

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North Korea may have selected a new defense minister following the presumed execution of former office holder Hyon Yong Chol, according to a new report Friday.

A new video broadcast by North Korea’s government-run media shows Gen. Pak Yong-Sik saluting Kim during a visit, a sign that he may have been promoted to the position. Hyon, the former minister, has been removed from all state videos in the month since his death.

If Pak has been promoted, his path to the minister position bears a resemblance to Hyon’s, who took on the role of minister in June after a promotion to four-star general, similar to Pak. He was the fourth person to take on the roll in two-and-a-half years.

Media reports vary on when Hyon was executed. The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal both reported that Hyon was killed in October 2014, while the BBC, CNN and the Korea Herald reported it occurred in April of this year.

In the three years since Kim Jong Un became the leader of the country, there have been many changes in  government staff. Dozens of officials have reportedly been executed under Kim, including an uncle who, like Hyon, was executed for treason.

[International Business Times]

Whispers of dissent and waning loyalty to Kim Jong-un

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The North Korean regime has always relied on public loyalty to the ruling Kim dynasty to maintain its totalitarian grip on power. But following a series of apparent high-profile executions, sources within the country suggest that cracks are beginning to show amid a growing willingness to express dissatisfaction with Kim Jong-un’s leadership.

Criticism of the alleged recent execution of the defence chief, Hyon Yong-chol, has been circulating in the capital, sources say, although it is impossible to verify these claims independently.

“Kim’s popularity among citizens has rapidly declined,” a woman from South Pyongyan province, who asked to remain anonymous, said during a phone conversation on 31 May. “People say that considering the fact that Kim had executed dozens of high-ranking officials within the few years since coming to power, ‘there’s no hope left’.”

Criticism of Kim, who succeeded his father Kim Jong-il in 2011, has spread to other regions of the country, she says, with the common complaint being that the younger Kim is “even worse than his father”.

Another source in North Pyongyan confirmed reports of mounting criticism, adding that unlike during the Kim Jong-il era: “officials in rural regions and security agents are far more inclined to air grievances more publicly regarding the leadership. Not only residents but even party cadres sneer when they see footage broadcast idolising the leader,” he claimed. “Many just say, ‘this sucks’, and switch off the TV.”

[The Guardian]

A suggestion that US should offer to talk with North Korea

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[Excerpts of a Forbes Opinion piece by Doug Bandow, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.]

As usual, no one knows what is going on in Pyongyang. Its internal politics appears to be bloodier than usual. Ironically, this might provide an opportunity for Washington to initiate talks over a more open bilateral relationship.

The latest rumor is that young dictator Kim Jong-un had his defense minister executed with anti-aircraft fire for disrespectful conduct, including falling asleep in meetings. If Hyon Yong-chol was killed quickly and unexpectedly, it probably wasn’t for dozing off, even in front of the new strongman. More likely the military man was plotting, or at least feared to be plotting, against the North’s leadership.

There has been striking turnover among party and military officials, including multiple appointments for some positions, since Kim Jong-un took over after his father’s death in December 2011. Half of the top 218 officials have been changed, according to the NIS. Even more dramatic was the arrest and execution of Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-taek, another “regent” seen as the regime number two, in December 2013. He was charged with treason, among other offenses, and his blood relatives were said to have been later executed as well.

In April the NIS reported that so far this year 15 high ranking North Korean officials, including an economist whose advice Kim Jong-un disliked, had been executed. Overall some 70 top apparatchiks and more than 400 lower level officials apparently have been killed this year.

This brutality towards the power elite sets Kim apart from his father and grandfather. While Kim Jong-un’s apparent penchant for executions may reflect a peculiarly sadistic nature, it more likely grows out of insecurity. Continuing turnover and executions after more than four years in charge suggests that Kim is not, or at least does not see himself, as yet secure.

Recent events suggest that something unusual is going on in that normally abnormal place.Kim’s bloody rule offers at least a possibility of a shift within the ruling elite. A clear American willingness to reward a more reform-minded government might aid the least bad actors in any power struggle. The Kim regime likely would not reject a process seeming to offer the respect it long has craved. Proposing talks and suggesting rewards would be the best response to an uncertain situation. Someday Pyongyang will change. Engagement is the best way to prepare for that day.

[Read full article]