So Is That It for 44 More Years?

The Chosun Workers' Party Delegates' Conference is over, and a veritable torrent of personnel and rule changes has been handed down. The whole thing quickly got a bit much, not least when Chosun Central News Agency (KCNA) took it upon itself to release a digest of the movers and shakers at 4:08AM on Wednesday morning.

Nevertheless, coffee brewed, news read. What did we learn, and what matters?

First, we learned that Kim Jong Il is a liar. He told Hu Jintao that the succession of Kim Jong Eun was a story cooked up by foreigners. Well, apparently not; Kim's third son has become, in the veritable blink of an eye, a "Daejang" (roughly but not really a four-star general), Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Party, and a member of the Central Committee of the Party. Not sure how Hu Jintao really views being used this way. We will probably never know.

Second, that this is all about keeping it in the family. Kim Kyung Hee, not only Kim Jong Il's biological sister but also Jang Sung Taek's wife, has become, again in the blink of an eye, a "Daejang", a full member of the Politburo and a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. For someone who has quietly toiled at ministerial level for a good few years and without apparently seeking any more political clout, this is also quite impressive.

Third, that Jang Sung Taek is continuing to do very nicely, having been conferred with another title to add to his Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission desk label; he can now call himself a candidate member of the Politburo, should he so choose. But, Kim Jong Il may well have felt that Jang was accumulating a little too much power, since he did not make him a voice in the Standing Committee, as some anticipated that he would.

Fourth, that a few hitherto mid-level elite figures are set for greatness. A Google alert for Lee Young Ho, for example, might not be a bad idea.

Fifth, we learned that the Chinese Communist Party does a good line in wilful blindness.

Kim Jong Il has "led the entire Korean people to be self-reliant, to struggle arduously and to make great achievements in the cause of building Korean-style socialism.

The Korean people have made a series of delightful achievements in building the DPRK (North Korea) into a strong and prosperous nation, in developing the national economy, in improving the people's livelihoods, etc.”

Well indeed. I can't actually think of any achievements, let alone delightful ones, but alright.

Then there is also the issue of what did NOT happen at the Delegates' Conference; namely, that offshoots of the Kim family were not mentioned in any way, shape or form, including half-brothers Kim Pyong Il and Kim Yong Il, for example. They have been out of the loop since Kim Jong Il rose to power, but have never been quite so invisible.

Of course, with the focusing of power on relationships forged out of Kim Il Sung's marriage to Kim Jong Suk, known as the mother of modern North Korea, rather than that to second-wife Kim Song Ae, this is a natural progression.

However, it is noteworthy that this did not include second son Kim Jong Cheol. It will be interesting to see how close to the action he comes in the next couple of years.

Then there is the fact that Kim Jong Eun came to prominence down the Military-first line, which can be seen one of two ways.

Looked at negatively, it means that the pseudo-fascist military dictatorship of Kim Jong Il may be set to continue, which does not bode well for reform, economic transformation, or improvements to the people's lives.

Looked at positively, however, it is not really all that surprising, so perhaps we should not read too much into it. Kim Jong Il rules through the military, and his "guiding philosophy", such as it is, is one of militarism. Since a dictator can never actually be wrong or he/she will lose his/her legitimacy, and the principle of a dynastic succession doesn't even allow page breaks derived from deaths, such as the USSR had when Stalin passed away, or Mao in 1976, it is necessary to pretend that Kim Jong Il was right,is right and will forever be right. Therefore, Kim Jong Eun needs to rule through the military and pay lip service to the Military-first policy.

If he makes the right moves (from my perspective, not his own) then he can install his people and begin reforms after his father dies whether he is nominally a military man or not. If not, then the people of North Korea may have to suffer a bit longer. Nobody knows his plan, and it is far too early in the power transition to make predictions.

Oh, and finally, we know what he now looks like, and it is; a portlier version of his grandfather.

Polite Disagreement in the Ol' FT

What is the future of the relationship between North Korea and China?

It's an interesting question, and the reality as I see it is that not even Pyongyang and Beijing really know, so expecting anyone to come to a sensible, by which I mean correct, answer is something of a fool's errand. But it is interesting to see the way the debate plays out regardless.

One recent round of the debate has been happening on the pages of the Financial Times, spurred by an article by popular journalist and author Robert Kaplan and partner in crime Abraham Denmark.

In their article, the two pour forth a fairly believable torrent of information on the threats facing the (assessments-vary-but-probably-reasonably-soon) to be incumbent post-Kim Jong Il North Korean administration.

The article was printed before the deferral/cancellation/revelation as a counter-espionage operation to weed out spies that is/was/may still be the Chosun Workers' Party Delegates' Conference, so its attempts at prescience haven't turned out that well so far, but that was not really the point. Thankfully, the piece presents a splendid digest of itself in the concluding paragraph, so let's go there without further a-do;

North Korea is entering a pivotal period. Kim Jong Eun will either oversee the collapse of the state his grandfather created, or – improbably – a radical reform of its approach to economic management and state control. Either way, the future stability of the world’s most dynamic region – north-east Asia – is likely to be most directly threatened by the whims of the untested and unknown youth. The implications for the Korean peninsula, and the broader region, are historic.

So far, so good. Next, entering with an important interjection comes Aiden Foster-Carter, a serious yet entertaining pro-Sunshine Policy British North Korea watcher. No reason not to quote the body of his letter, it not being particularly long;

Yet (Kaplan and Denmark) underplay one key factor: the external dimension. Despite its shrill claims of juche (self-reliance), North Korea can no longer do it alone. Its people, long unfed, are finally fed up. Kim Jong Il’s latest oddly sudden trip to China was to seek urgent aid, without which the anointing of his untried son Kim Jong Eun as successor would be an even riskier manoeuvre.

Such help has a price. Beijing will demand overdue market reforms, and the Kims are in no position to resist. The old game is up. Economic and political exigencies alike mean they need a protector, to finance and guarantee what still threatens to be a perilous transition.

South Korea could have played this role, but its current government foolishly ditched the “sunshine” policy of the previous decade.

Seoul now has no influence in or on Pyongyang. Beijing has filled the vacuum. North Korea’s future, if it has one, is as a Chinese satellite.

It's not an argument between opposing forces, it's a debate about the weight of any one individual factor in the future of North Korea. It's the "whims of the untested and unknown youth" against the vacuum-filling technocrats in Beijing. Both will vie for influence, we are told, but which will be in the ascendancy?

Foster-Carter also challenges us to decide whether we feel that abandoning the Sunshine Policy was folly on the part of the South Korean government, or, as my employer would have it, a very sensible full-stop on a decade of unconstrained and unwise aid to an unreconstructed and hostile North Korean state. Certainly Foster-Carter feels it is the former, not only using "foolishly" but "ditching" as well to make his point.

But next, coming from an unlikely source, London's haven for Korean expats, not to mention a growing crop of defectors, New Malden, is Kim Joo Il. In his letter, Kim, of the newly formed European Union North Korean Residents Society strikes out against the Sunshine Policy and downplays the likelihood of North Korea becoming a satellite of China;

Firstly, (Aiden Foster-Carter) does not see the shadow from the “sunshine” policy. The policy provided thousands and thousands of cash to Kim Jong Il, which helped the collapsing regime to survive. Ordinary people who live in the shade are still suffering from the dictatorship. It is the “sunshine” policy that encouraged Kim Jong Il to carry on nuclear weapons development and make ordinary people suffer.

Second, his prediction on North Korea becoming China’s satellite comes from his ignorance of North Korean nationalism. North Koreans are very poor, but they are very hostile to foreigners, not only to the US and Japan, but also to China. The class does not matter. They all think in the same way.

Ordinary North Koreans and the ruling class are deeply humiliated by Kim Jong Il’s begging to China. Considering this strong nationalism, it is unlikely that North Korea will be China’s satellite no matter who becomes his successor.

In other words, the Sunshine Policy was itself a folly which allowed North Korea to develop nuclear weapons and play fast and loose with international proliferation agreements on, in large part, the South Korean dime.

In addition, Kim believes North Koreans are far too nationalistic to put up with becoming a Chinese satellite. In the end, with an admirable degree of bravado but a total and distressing absence of actual evidence, Kim claims that North Korea will be peacefully absorbed by South Korea.

Which leaves us where? Well, there is much to take away from all three contributions;

-Yes, the whims of the successor will presumably have a considerable influence on events and will need to be watched carefully, but if China imposes itself on the successor there may not be much he/she can do to avoid bending to their will.

-Yes, China's potential influence on North Korea is massive, but let us not forget that there are said to be limits to their interest in exercising that influence.

-No, the nigh-on xenophobically nationalistic average North Korean apparently doesn't want his country to be a Chinese satellite, but he is not in control of the country, and even if he is, he probably prefers following the Chinese model to losing control altogether, while the North Korean everyman will probably quickly come to a compelling conclusion about which side his/her bread is buttered when presented with this.

So who is right? Everybody and nobody, of course! This is fun, isn't it?!

Chinese Media, Chinese Stance.

Kremlinology was and still is a precise set of analytical skills. Kumsusanology is the same. And China watching is very similar. A lot of it revolves around careful reading between the lines of official pronouncements and the state-run media.

Sometimes, of course, the reading doesn’t even need to be all that careful. Such is the case with recent pieces from the two major outward-looking organs of the Communist Party of China, “The People’s Daily” and “Global Times”, on North Korea and the regional power balance.

Take a look at these quotes;

August 20th, 2010

“South Korea needs to keep clear-minded that its security has to be built on goodwill with its neighbors, and the strategic balance of the region should be unchanged.

A stronger South Korea-US alliance might jeopardize the trust of Seoul with its neighbors, and lead to more insecurity.

The hawkish trend of the Lee Myung Bak administration has also aroused public opinion that pressed it to take more hard-line actions. The situation on the Korean Peninsula is stuck in a vicious cycle.

Seoul has to think clearly if it wants to break the vicious cycle. Its security will come from a stable Northeast Asia.”

August 26th, 2010

“To put it simply, the US has never changed its basic policy toward North Korea, which is to ensue a regime change.

Although Washington is not openly talking about the policy, its goal remains to overthrow the current North Korean government.

The US-South Korean joint military exercises are a move to accelerate this momentum. It is a strategy to push and prepare for change, and take the initiative if the regime change really happens.

The controversial sinking of the South Korean battleship, in retrospect, is more like a convenient excuse for the US to conduct a long-planned drill that envisions the occupation of the North, rather than a single reaction toward an emergency.

…

The Korean Peninsula is too important to ignore in the realm of global geopolitics. U.S. control of the peninsula will pose a realistic threat to China and Russia.

North Korean leadership is expected to change hands soon. The world is watching the change closely, as North Korea is still not back to the Six-Party Talks that aim to persuade it to drop its nuclear weapon program.

A smooth transition of power in the North is vital for the stability of Northeast Asia.

China needs to clearly realize this, and try to play an active role in preserving the peace on the Korean Peninsula, as well as look after its own interests.”

These are unattributed editorials. They are, to all intents and purposes, the Chinese leadership's current stance. And they make the position very clear.

First, the U.S. and South Korea should avoid trying to enhance their power in the region. Lee Myung Bak is overstepping the mark with his hawkishness.

Second, the Chinese are prepared to accept the Kim Jong Eun transition of power if it means that stability is ensured.

Finally, the U.S. should not try/stop trying to topple the regime in Pyongyang. To say the Chinese want Kim Jong Eun there is an almighty overstatement, but they don’t want the alternative, especially instability. The Chinese know that a transition period is a time of weakness in a dictatorship, and they don't want the U.S. to try and incite rebellion in the people at such a time.

To wit, they feel that the U.S.-South Korean military exercises being conducted this year are partially aimed at fomenting just that unrest in the North Korean military establishment.

For sure, there are warnings in there for Pyongyang too, not least among them; if we don’t see stability coming out of the succession, then we might just change our minds. And there are positive messages, notably; we won't go out of our way to stop your hereditary succession.

But what this shows above all is how the Chinese go about giving gentle guidance to their international competitors.

All we, the aforementioned competitors, have to do is read it. When the government's opinion is also the newspaper's opinion, isn't it so much simpler?!

Is a Dusty Old Ruleboook Still a Rulebook?

With September edging closer and the Chosun Workers' Party Delegates' Conference therein concealed, it is fast approaching time for Pyongyang watchers to take the stage. And Kumsusanology is certainly full of ideas on what the event might mean.

For that matter, let it not be said that the Chosun Workers' Party itself is underplaying the conference, either. It's august organ, mouthpiece of choice and a newpsaper which can be relied on never to hold back on the hyperbole and propaganda, Rodong Shinmun asserted this week that the event “will shine as a notable event in the history of the sacred Workers’ Party.”

Obviously, something is afoot then, and many people, not least among them Hwang Jang Yop, see it as an attempt to reboot the Workers' Party and reinstall it as the leading power in the state, a position it nominally lost because Kim Jong Il felt he had the best chance of surviving if he hollowed it out and placed most of its power in the hands of the National Defense Commission during the decade(s) horribilis otherwise known as the 1990s and early 2000s.

Meanwhile, others simply think that Kim Jong Il may feel the need to place a wafer-thin veneer of legitimacy on installing his son into the top position. In the words of Daily NK man Park In Ho,

The Politburo statement limits the reasons for the holding of the delegates’ meeting to “electing the Party’s highest organs”, suggesting instead that it is by no means a sign of reorganization in advance of a Party Congress, for example, but simply a move to prepare the minimum decision making structure for the succession of Kim Jong Eun.

And this is partly the key question, and partly irrelevant. I mean, can we say that it is even possible to try and restore the function of a system of governance by holding for just the third time a meeting which Party statutes decree should have been held every five years, thus requiring there to have been twelve such meetings, give or take, since the founding of the country?

Kim seems to have decided that his son doesn't have the chops to keep the military in line over the long term within the system he leads through, and has decided to hollow out the NDC a little. So a rebalancing of the military-Party balance it may well be, but it is overreaching a fair bit to call it a return to communist or any other kind of orthodoxy.

Could You Not Even Try to Understand?

A few days ago, I started writing a piece about the serious surfeit of hyperbole in the British media about the likelihood of war on the Korean Peninsula but, mostly because I had no time for research, it never reached critical mass.

For the record, most of my ire was reserved for this nonsense by Rupert Cornwell in The Independent, a piece characterized by statements about North Korea like "in our world of instant experts and instant explanations, what a delight to discover something genuinely mystifying" and which could not help but conclude with an Inspector O quote, "Where I live, we don't solve cases, for what is a solution in a reality that never resolves itself into anything definable?"

Thereafter, as an aside, it didn't surprise me to learn via this USA Today pish that the American media is no less guilty of mindless hysteria and sensationalism. Indeed, this may be the worst piece of all, with the standout quote (by which I mean most divorced from reality) being;

The March 26 sinking of the South Korea warship Cheonan by a suspected North Korean torpedo, killing all 46 sailors aboard, has grown into a crisis in which the world's two largest militaries — those of the United States and China— are lined up on opposite sides behind the South and North, respectively.

There are more, and I would point you to this cutting criticism from Seoul resident Rob York if you want to follow it up.

But I also had some problems with this piece in the Telegraph. Let's be clear, I have a great deal of time for Aiden Foster-Carter; he is an expert of long standing, and a pithy writer whose style appeals to my British sensibilities. In short, I am not surprised that he is sought out to provide analysis for the British press.

The problem I have is that daily newspapers of substance are still printing this kind of "Who is the madman in Pyongyang?" piece every time something newsworthy happens on the Korean Peninsula. If the Telegraph had asked Aiden Foster-Carter to provide an analysis of the post-Cheonan political landscape, that is what they would have received. Let's reiterate; Aiden Foster-Carter is an expert, with expertise.

But it seems to me that what they wanted, and by God it is mostly what they got, was the standard rehash of the well worn stories we have all heard; stories that characterize Kim Jong Il as a cartoon dictator in the eyes of the reader. It is designed to entertain, not inform. It is eruditely written, but ultimately unhelpful.

Anyway, I was inspired to drag that formerly dead piece out of the recycling after reading here that the Telegraph has also been stealing the pro bono North Korea research of One Free Korea.

And what is my reaction? Well I instinctively recommend following this up and getting the apology deserved, but beyond that, I just shrug. Because this is symptomatic of the kind of slapdash North Korea journalism that just isn't very surprising anymore.

Is it that hard to actually try?