The European Council on Foreign Relations

North Korea: still a family business

Date: 20th December 2011  |  Author: Jonas Parello-Plesner,

Categories: China, Rule of law, democracy and human rights, Security and Defence,
Tags: china, kim jong-un, north korea, pyongyang, kim il-sung

In Europe, the finest and most valiant crusader against dictatorship both in word and deed, Vaclav Havel, passed away.  Meanwhile, Kim Jong-il, a long-lasting dictator and ruler of the world’s only hereditary communistic system, died of a stroke at the symbolic age of 69 (following an age pattern from other illustrious dictators like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, joining what one commentator has coined the ’69 club’).

The announcement of his death was made by a weeping female news reader dressed in black. In Pyongyang, public mass crying broke out, perhaps to balance the lack of condolences from the outside world: the former American presidential candidate, John McCain, suggested that Kim Jong-il had gone to a ‘warm corner of hell’.

Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, is the likely successor. His grooming started recently, although his apprenticeship and rise to power was far from over. The founder of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung, the so-called Great Leader, employed more than a decade to groom his son, Kim Jong-il, before his take over in 1994 to become the Dear Leader. 2012 is the centenary of Kim Il-Sung’s birth, and a succession annoucement was expected in April. Instead, Kim Jong-Un is today parachuted into a position as the Young Leader and the third generation of Kim. 

Kim Jong-Un is an untested card and may become a puppet whose strings are pulled by generals and power brokers in the North Korean Communist Party and by other members of the Kim family. This in turn may lead to factional infighting, and is why the world is holding its breath to see – in the short term - what happens next. The next door neighbour, South Korea, has a vivid memory of last year's deadly North Korean attacks on a South Korean island. Vigilance is a natural precaution.

Yet a new leader is also a chance for North Korea and for the outside world to test out the young Kim’s willingness to reform and negotiate.  Kim jong-Un, although little is known of his personal history, has lived in the West and has first-hand experience of other systems. If he breaks new ground and reaches out to the world, we should reciprocate.

Mr Obama has the opportunity to reach out. His policy of ‘speaking with the enemy’ had a rough start with North Korea, after he was welcomed into the presidency with nuclear tests. That made reaching out to Pyongyang virtually impossible. Things may be different now. Mrs Clinton recently passed by Burma to rekindle the reforming flames of the Burmese Spring, so if the right opening arises in North Korea, that might warrant another Asia trip.

What about China? ‘A friend’s departure’ is the headline in the state-run China Daily. China is interested in maintaining North Korea as a friendly state within its orbit and as a buffer. China’s leaders have already nurtured contacts with the new Kim and they are ready to deal with North Korea in its new configuration.  What they fear is instability, particularly since they are entering they own year of succession in China. The plight of the North Korean people remains an internal affair, and although one can read alternative voices on the Chinese friendship with the Kim-dictators on Chinese microblogs, it doesn’t change official policy. 

It is a difficult task to inherit third generation family dictatorship but Kim Jong-Un should learn a lesson - not from his progenitors but from the rapid popular changes of the Arab Spring - and lead North Korea away from its self imposed isolation. The exhausted North Korean population deserves much better than living in a country treated as little more than a family run business.

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