North Korea Rattles Sabers For An Heir

By Author: pangsiyan
Total Articles: 130
Comment this article

WASHINGTON — In the 16 years since he assumed his father's role as North Korea's sole leader, Kim Jong-il has been denounced by the United States as a vicious dictator who starves his people, runs gulags, sets off nuclear tests and orders attacks on South Korean ships.

But now the Obama administration is concerned that what comes next could be worse.

What is coming, they fear, is Mr. Kim's third son, Kim Jong-un, who is thought to have been the moving force behind a new wave of aggressive actions by the North and appears to be in line to succeed his father.

On Thursday night, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates — who took an intense interest in North Korea during his many years as an intelligence officer and then the director of the C.I.A. — offered an on-the-record glimpse of the administration's internal analysis, saying that the North's provocative actions were indications that the dictator's son has to earn his stripes with the North Korean military.

He voiced suspicions that it was the succession struggle — in which Kim Jong-il is helping to build the credentials ...
... of his son, who is either 27 or 28 — that could explain the attack on a South Korean frigate, the Cheonan, that killed 46 South Korean sailors in March. My worry is that that's behind a provocation like the sinking of the Cheonan, Mr. Gates said during an appearance in San Francisco.

In a question-and-answer series after his speech, the defense secretary, echoing statements by American military leaders, said that until the North Korean succession was settled, the Cheonan sinking could turn out to be the first of several such attacks. Last week a South Korean fishing boat was seized in disputed waters, and the North Koreans, apparently reacting to recently completed military exercises conducted by the United States and the South Koreans, raked the area with gunfire. The action was mostly symbolic; there were no other forces nearby.

We're very concerned that this may not be the only provocation from the North Koreans, said Mr. Gates, who, along with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, held talks with their South Korean counterparts last month. But Mr. Gates also characterized the North right now as very frail, apparently referring to continuing reports of widespread hunger and the outcry from a failed effort early this year to revalue its nearly worthless currency, which wiped out what few savings North Koreans could scrape together. That effort was later reversed when it appeared likely to set off uprisings.

Next month the North Koreans are expected to convene a meeting of the country's top political leadership. There has been widespread speculation in the Japanese and South Korean media that the younger Mr. Kim will make his debut, either as the designated successor to his father, or in some central role in the country's politburo or its most important institution, the National Defense Commission.

One leading theory is that if the elder Mr. Kim, who suffered a stroke in 2008 and appears to have only partly recovered, dies in the next few years, the country would be run by a regent, probably his brother-in-law, Jang Song-taek.

But the younger Mr. Kim, who was briefly educated in Switzerland as a teenager, would be the designated leader, and presumably would ultimately take charge. Many analysts are focusing on a possible transition in 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, the father of the current leader and grandfather of the presumed successor. He died in 1994.

You hear all these theories about how Kim Jong-un is aggressively pressing for more attacks on South Korean targets, or maybe even striking out at its allies, said Jonathan Pollack, a professor at the Naval War College in Rhode Island and one of the country's leading North Korea watchers. And it's easy to believe, because this is what happened 30 years ago, when Kim Jong-il, also young, untested and unpredictable, was thought to be responsible for many North Korean attacks.

It was presumed that the elder Mr. Kim, like his son now, was looking to win the allegiance of the North Korean military, which is constantly trying to bolster its image as an unbeatable, nuclear-armed force.

But remember, we don't even know what the kid looks like, or even exactly how old he is, Mr. Pollack said. So this is a mix of intelligence and speculation, like everything else in North Korea.

Among the speculation is that the elder Mr. Kim may be restraining his son from conducting a range of other attacks, much as he himself was restrained decades ago.

But so far, there is scant evidence that the younger Mr. Kim has any independent authority. The last transition took place over a period of 10 years or so, during which Kim Il-sung gradually gave authority to Kim Jong-un, said Joel Wit, a former State Department negotiator with the North. But there is no evidence that the son has that authority now.

At the same time, he said, There is a sense that if the Obama administration doesn't want to negotiate with Kim Jong-il these days, they could be positively nostalgic for him in a few years.

Mr. Gates, in his comments in San Francisco, noted that the United States had been working with China to restrain North Korea's adventurism, but he seemed persuaded by China's declarations that when it comes to succession, Beijing has limited clout. Moreover, there is some evidence that the Chinese are trying to protect their lines of communication to the North Koreans.

China's leadership seems even more focused than ever on preserving stability in the North, fearing that a collapse now would send millions of refugees across the border and could ultimately result in a scramble for control that could put South Korean forces — and their American allies — on the Chinese border.

Without referring specifically to those possibilities, Mr. Gates said that fear of a collapse was one of the reasons why they are unwilling to put much pressure on that regime, because maybe they, even more than we, believe it's very frail.