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North Korea holds the funeral for Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang on Wednesday, 11 days after his reported death on Dec. 17. On Monday evening, DPRK’s new leader Kim Jong-un briefly met two visitors from Seoul offering condolences, former first lady Lee Hee-ho and Hyun Jung-eun, chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, the main business partner with the North until the suspension of inter-Korean economic cooperation in 2008.
Despite the suddenness of the leader’s death from a heart attack, North Korea seems to remain in order and the new leadership seems to be firmly in charge. Hundreds of thousands of people are paying tribute to the dead leader prostrating and wailing in front of his huge portrait at Kim Il-sung Square in the freezing cold. Selected people went to the Geumsusan Memorial Palace where Kim Jong-il’s body is lying in state with his third son Kim Jong-un standing by through most of the mourning period.
Pyongyang’s state media began attaching new titles to Kim Jong-un, who was officially designated as heir to power in 2010. They have been calling him the “supreme leader” of the armed forces since Saturday and Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers Party’s organ paper, significantly referred to him as head of the Central Committee of the party. His father had held the title of the party’s general secretary and chairman of the state Defense Commission.
Watching the North through the Korea Central News Agency’s news dispatches and commentaries and broadcasts by Joseon (Korean) Central TV, we wonder who is behind all the decisions, large and small, made in Pyongyang in the virtual state of emergency after the sudden departure of the leader who ruled the country for 17 years. Somebody sent senior officials to Gaeseong to receive the condolence visitors from Seoul, endorsed the use of the new titles for Kim Jong-un and approved the new statements released through the state media in the controlled system of the North but we do not know yet who he or she is.
Kim Jong-il’s sister Kim Kyong-hi and her husband Jang Song-thaek, who both are full generals in the People’s Army, are certainly the key figures in running the day-to-day business of the North at the side of Kim Jong-un. But a collective leadership comprising the party, military and administrative hierarchies must be at work to keep state affairs in order.
Seoul now seems to have chosen the basic stance of not irritating the North for the time being, concluding that an early stabilization of the new leadership system would be beneficial to the South. Here, we would recommend that the government decide whether to seek a shift in its North Korea policy toward a thaw or maintain the existing tough stance when the current fluidity has passed and Kim Jong-un’s new ruling group clearly manifests its position on the South.
Yet, there is the possibility of an upheaval ― from the rupture of the new leadership structure, unrest of the discontented grass-root workers and peasants and revolt of any portion of the military or a combination of these ― no matter how slim it may look at the moment. No time should be passed idle for the Seoul government in preparing for contingencies in the North in these delicate times.
Despite the suddenness of the leader’s death from a heart attack, North Korea seems to remain in order and the new leadership seems to be firmly in charge. Hundreds of thousands of people are paying tribute to the dead leader prostrating and wailing in front of his huge portrait at Kim Il-sung Square in the freezing cold. Selected people went to the Geumsusan Memorial Palace where Kim Jong-il’s body is lying in state with his third son Kim Jong-un standing by through most of the mourning period.
Pyongyang’s state media began attaching new titles to Kim Jong-un, who was officially designated as heir to power in 2010. They have been calling him the “supreme leader” of the armed forces since Saturday and Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers Party’s organ paper, significantly referred to him as head of the Central Committee of the party. His father had held the title of the party’s general secretary and chairman of the state Defense Commission.
Watching the North through the Korea Central News Agency’s news dispatches and commentaries and broadcasts by Joseon (Korean) Central TV, we wonder who is behind all the decisions, large and small, made in Pyongyang in the virtual state of emergency after the sudden departure of the leader who ruled the country for 17 years. Somebody sent senior officials to Gaeseong to receive the condolence visitors from Seoul, endorsed the use of the new titles for Kim Jong-un and approved the new statements released through the state media in the controlled system of the North but we do not know yet who he or she is.
Kim Jong-il’s sister Kim Kyong-hi and her husband Jang Song-thaek, who both are full generals in the People’s Army, are certainly the key figures in running the day-to-day business of the North at the side of Kim Jong-un. But a collective leadership comprising the party, military and administrative hierarchies must be at work to keep state affairs in order.
Seoul now seems to have chosen the basic stance of not irritating the North for the time being, concluding that an early stabilization of the new leadership system would be beneficial to the South. Here, we would recommend that the government decide whether to seek a shift in its North Korea policy toward a thaw or maintain the existing tough stance when the current fluidity has passed and Kim Jong-un’s new ruling group clearly manifests its position on the South.
Yet, there is the possibility of an upheaval ― from the rupture of the new leadership structure, unrest of the discontented grass-root workers and peasants and revolt of any portion of the military or a combination of these ― no matter how slim it may look at the moment. No time should be passed idle for the Seoul government in preparing for contingencies in the North in these delicate times.
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Articles by Korea Herald
