North Korea digs in
Kim's ill-health adds to pressures on regime
North Korea faces an impending leadership crisis, severe economic troubles and increasingly impatient negotiating partners. Its response, as so often in the past when it has felt cornered, has been to drive the hardest bargain it can regarding its strategic-weapons programmes – its only commodity of any real interest to the outside world.
Succession questions came to the fore when 'Dear Leader' Kim Jong Il was absent from public view for weeks after his last documented appearance on 14 August 2008. The 66-year-old Kim took over leadership of the nation and the Korean People's Army in 1994 upon the death of Kim Il Sung, although he did not assume the last of his father's titles – General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WKP) – until 1997.
This was not the first time Kim has disappeared from public view. There have been 18 cases of prolonged absence since 2003, sometimes for as long as 40 days. On previous occasions, he has suddenly reappeared. However, this time, it was remarkable that he was absent during such important celebrations as the 60th anniversary of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on 9 September and the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the WKP on 10 October. In a country where the state and the leader are, in effect, interchangeable entities, the leader's absence poses significant challenges to the regime's survival. As long as Kim is alive, direct assaults on his power are highly unlikely. But should his health deteriorate further, the mystique, the power and the authority of the Kim dynasty is likely to begin to dissipate.
When Kim Il Sung died in July 1994, Kim Jong Il was 52 and had been a leader-in-training since his late twenties. He assumed de facto control of the party in the early 1980s and became Chairman of the National Defence Commission in 1993. By the time of his father's death, almost all of the top military cadres were Kim Jong Il loyalists. But as much as the current military leadership owes their rise to power to Kim Jong Il, the reverse is equally true.
Kim Jong Il has three sons: Kim Jong Nam (35), Kim Jong Chul (25) and Kim Jong Woong (22). Very little is known about their abilities or about their ties to the party and the army. Kim Jong Nam apparently ran afoul of his father when he attempted to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a forged passport in 2001, and he lived thereafter for periods of time in Macau and Beijing. Kim Jong Chul appeared to emerge as the favourite in 2006 when he was named as the Workers' Party 'nerve centre' in a party instruction memo, but little more is known about him and Kim Jong Il is not known to have made any decision on the succession.
While the sons are being groomed, Kim Jong Il's sister, Kim Kyung Hee, and her husband, Chang Seong Taek – who was promoted last year to a powerful party position overseeing internal security – could also emerge to wield significant influence. So too could Kim Jong Il's half-brother Kim Pyong Il, who is an experienced diplomat.
During Kim's apparent convalescence, some form of collective leadership of the party and military has carried on governing the country. Were the 'Dear Leader' to pass from the scene, they might continue to do so, perhaps with a member of the dynasty emerging as de facto leader. But it is difficult to imagine any relative exerting the firm grasp that Kim and his father were able to muster.
Poor neighbourly relations
Halting reforms since 2002 have not reversed North Korea's economic troubles. The country releases no statistics, but South Korea's Bank of Korea calculates the North's economy contracted by 2.3% in 2007 and that its GDP stood at $25 billion, some 40 times less than South Korea's nearly $1 trillion figure. Other estimates suggest that the real difference is of the order of 120. North Korea's total trade was estimated at $4.3bn in 2006 compared to South Korea's $730bn. The public distribution system, which rations food throughout the country, has faced difficulties even within Pyongyang. In practice, it is foreign food aid that is staving off another disastrous famine similar to that of 1995–1997. Even so, a recurrent food shortage reportedly led three-quarters of all households to reduce their food intake over the summer.
Coinciding with Kim's absence, Pyongyang's relations with much of the outside world have taken a turn for the worse. In November, North Korea reportedly restricted travel for Chinese visitors, closing one of its main border crossings. China is said to have boosted troops on the North Korean border since September, to prepare for any influx of refugees should there be a leadership change.
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