 Choi Ju Hal, president of the Association of North Korean Defectors. Image: Daily NK |
Kim Yong Chol was recently promoted to director of the United Front Department in North Korea. He has a reputation for
being an intelligent and cunning strategist. Before rising to his current
position, Kim Yong Chol served a long career in the Reconnaissance Bureau,
where he used alliances and cunning to climb his way to the top despite coming
from lowly origins. We got the chance to sit down with Choi Ju Hal, president of the Association of North Korean Defectors, an NGO based in Seoul which is dedicated to the
democratization of North Korea. Because he got the chance to meet Kim Yong Chol
on countless occasions before he defected to the South, Choi Ju Hal has
unparalleled insights into the mind and backstory of Kim Yong Chol, as well as
some insight into what changes might come with his new appointment, including a
potential power struggle with the military.
Q. How did you come to meet Kim Yong Chol?
I spent time around Kim Yong Chol from the
middle of the 1980s until 1995. I came to know a man named Ro Sung Il who was
in the same division as Kim Yong Chol for ten years. After ten years of working
together, Ro Sung Il was transferred over to the the external affairs division
within the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces, where I was stationed. Ro Sung Il and Kim Yong Chol were in the Reconnaissance Bureau stationed in South
Pyongan Province’s Hoechang County.
They graduated from a foreign language
school there in 1966. This training school was intended to produce spies who
could use their foreign language abilities to gather intel for the
Reconnaissance Bureau. Kim Yong Chol learned Chinese there. After he rose in
the ranks in the Reconnaissance Bureau–eventually to the top– he would stop
by the foreign affairs division within the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces to
chat with his old pal, Ro Sung Il. I was able to listen in to a lot of their
conversations and generally just observe his behavior when he came by.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about what kind of
person Kim Yong Chol is in your experience?
He is a very intelligent person. He’s the
kind of guy that knows how to accomplish the task no matter what obstacles come
his way. However, he did have a fatal flaw: less than ideal songbun [loyalty
ranking determined by family pedigree, loyalty, etc]. He even had some
relatives go over to China. Therefore, after graduation, many of the students
from the language training school at the Reconnaissance Bureau were dispatched
overseas to do work, but Kim Yong Chol was never given that prestigious
opportunity. That was why he came to my former workplace so frequently. He was
looking for opportunities to get sent abroad. But he never got that chance.
From that point on, he changed his
strategy. He was determined to win through sheer skill alone. He began to see
the fruits of this labor around 1980. At that time, there were bi-weekly
lectures scheduled for Saturdays. The lectures targeted two groups split by
rank: the first comprised Party secretaries and military generals; the second,
officers at the colonel level or higher and Cabinet directors.
At that time, Kim
Yong Chol was not in a head position; however, he gave lectures at the higher
level meetings. The lectures normally lasted from one to two hours. Without
looking at his script even a single time, Kim Yong Chol would speak at length
about South Korean politics, the military situation, etc. All without missing a
beat. He knew the name and rank of all the relevant South Korean military
commanders, the locations of Southern units, and strategy estimates.
Q. Do you think that this intelligence is
what enabled Kim Yong Chol to quickly move upwards through the ranks despite
his poor songbun?
I think that that is the case. However,
there was another important factor that explains the upwards trajectory of Kim
Yong Chol’s career. That factor is Jang Song Thaek’s older brother, Jang Sung
Woo. He was serving as chief of the Reconnaissance Bureau at the time. He used
Kim Yong Chol as his right hand man and assistant. He helped Kim Yong Chol to
move up in the world. In order to gain the confidence of Kim Il Sung and Kim
Jong Il, Kim Yong Chol began to appear as a reserve for high level North-South
summits in February of 1989 and appeared in the support delegation for the
September 1990 High Level Summit meeting with the South. At the summit, Kim Il
Sung was reported to say about Kim Yong Chol, “He’s a very bright guy.”
Kim Yong Chol was promoted quickly after
that point. In 1991, he moved up to deputy director at the Reconnaissance
Bureau. I think he took the name ‘Kim Yong Chol’ around that time as well. His
real name is Kim Dong Su. Kim Il Sung was supposed to have used many false
names in his younger days as a resistance fighter. Kim Il Sung supposedly
thought it might be nice to use the name ‘Kim Yong Chol,’ according to what Kim
Yong Chol told Ro Sung Il who later informed me.
Q. It’s interesting that Jang Sung Woo
assisted Kim Yong Chol. We know that Jang Sung Woo wasn’t always on good terms
with his brother. Did the acrimony of their relationship affect Kim Yong Chol
at all?
Even if that wasn’t the case, Jang Sung Woo
got demoted in 1988. At that time, Kim Yong Chol’s position must have been at
risk as well, given their close connection. But Kim Yong Chol was capable of
conducting himself well despite this. For example, even though he was empowered
by supporters around him, he earned compliments from Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong
Il through his own hard work. I think that Kim Jong Un probably takes note of
Kim Yong Chol’s abilities. There isn’t a single person who could fill his
shoes.
After rising to the deputy director
position at the Reconnaissance Bureau, he worked there for ten years. Then he
got promoted again to director. Even if you thoroughly go through North Korean
history, I don’t think you’ll find another person working for this long at
their post. It just doesn’t happen. I think this is the biggest indicator of
just how well received and supported he is by the Kim family.
Q. Kim Yong Chol is known to have a tough
stance towards South Korea. We also know that he butts heads with Kim Yang Gon,
who served as the head of the United Front Department. Now that Kim Yong Chol
has been promoted to director of the United Front Department, what do you think
is going to happen?
Because Kim Yong Chol is not only the
director of the United Front Department, but also the Secretary of Relations
with the South, there is a strong possibility that he will have outsized
influence. Normally the director of the United Front Department has the right
to carry out the strategy that has been laid out by the Party. Normally, the
United Front Department and the Reconnaissance Bureau do not fully understand
what sort of work the other departments do. But Kim Young has experience in the
Reconnaissance Bureau. I think this means that as he transitions over to the
United Front Department, he will also continue to use the strategies and
organizational methods he used at the Reconnaissance Bureau. He will take the
lessons from the planning and research departments of his old job with him into
his new role.
Of course, in doing so, there is the risk
that he might run into conflict with the military. But this is a bright and
clever person we’re talking about. He might be able to leverage Kim Jong Un’s
support for him in order to totally change the way that the United Front
Department works. In that scenario, we will see a shift away from the methods
and style of former Director Kim Yang Gon and towards the style of Kim Yong
Chol.
Q. Can you give us an example of this?
When I was in North Korea, the United Front
Department worked to incite revolution through the use of the pro-Pyongyang
General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, better known as Chochongnyon,
and other Koreans living abroad. They tried to instigate the South and set up a
spy network here through those methods. Because Kim Yong Chol comes from a
military background, there is a chance he might use military provocations to
achieve these goals. But such actions are traditionally in the purview of
the military, so we’ll have to see how Kim Yong Chol works that out.
