How should one understand the recent news of Kim Jong Il’s ailing health?
The main realities currently facing us are two-fold. First, there is the confirmation of the absence of Kim Jong Il from the 60th anniversary commemoration of the founding of the North Korean regime on September 9th, and second, the report to the National Assembly in Seoul by the National Intelligence Service Director, which showed that Kim’s absence was due to his ailing health, noting that “Kim Jong Il received surgery for a stroke and is currently in recovery.”
The first was confirmed through images from Chosun (North Korea) Central TV, and although the report by Kim Sung Ho, the Director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), did not present hard evidence, one can take confidence when considering various sources of information. The analyses, interpretations, positions, and predictions that have ensued may have seemed significant, but they are still somewhat groundless and merely amount to “things that remain to be seen.”
However, the recent diagnosis of Kim Jong Il’s poor health is significant in several ways. Simply put, the situation in North Korea has changed. When compared to a four-act, five-scene play from ancient Greek times, from the single expression “Kim Jong Il did not participate in the 60th anniversary of the founding of the regime due to his failing health,” we might claim that the third act of the North Korean story has closed and the play has moved onto the fourth act.
Until now, there have been a lot of stories circulating about Kim Jong Il’s health, mostly because an ailment had not been confirmed. Therefore the stories were merely “rumors.” However, there is a big difference between a “rumor” and a “fact.” That is, one might have cancer, but there is a big difference between living without knowing and having the diagnosis confirmed. Afterwards, that person’s values, life purpose, and lifestyle will completely change. The “North Korean issue” after the disclosure of Kim Jong il’s health is similar. Why is this the case?
Usually when one refers to the “North Korean issue,” the key items on the agenda are nuclear, opening and reform, food, human rights, a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula (Northeast Asia), and unification issues.
Among these items, “Kim Jong Il’s incapacitation and the emergency situation in North Korea” was an anomalous agenda; a variable, not a constant. In other words, Kim Jong Il’s illness was an indistinct item on the agenda, but now, it has become a concrete problem.
Such a reality has important implications for countries surrounding North Korea–South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan, and Russia.
In particular, for South Korea, even if Kim Jong Il’s ailing health was at all emphasized in the last ten years, then a strange logic nevertheless prevailed, such as “let’s not cause a stalemate in inter-Korean relations” and “it will provoke the North.” Amidst this, because of the abnormal claims that “If someone mentions an emergency situation in the North, they are not experts, but extreme-conservatives,” we were faced with the difficult situation of having to repeatedly build a North Korean policy from the ground up.
Also, the U.S., which has focused on resolving the nuclear issue, China, to whom the defector and nuclear issues have been of importance, and Japan, for whom the abductees and nuclear issue have been priorities, are now forced to prepare more specifically in light of Kim Jong Il’s illness and North Korea’s emergency situation.
So, how would circumstances change if Kim Jong Il’s illness and North Korea’s emergency becomes a matter of a fixed agenda?
For instance, the South Korean government has to enter the preparation stage, which includes inspections and a policy of provision. The Blue House, the Office of the Premier, the Ministry of National Defense, the NIS, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade have to commence their work. The issue should be on the agenda of the Cabinet Council and the Top Secretarial meetings, which are presided over by the President.
Such situation also casts influence on other areas. With a change in priorities, issues that are not so urgent, such as economic cooperation and inter-Korean exchanges will be relegated by the need to confirm the degree of Kim Jong Il’s ailing health and observing and analyzing the internal trends in the North. If more time passes, the possibility exists that such a change will lead to a total and fundamental examination of unification and all other areas surrounding North Korea.
There will be policy changes regarding the Korean Peninsula and the security environment in Northeast Asia among North Korea’s surrounding countries. As significant changes on the international agenda additionally emerge they will influence relations between those countries surrounding North Korea. It is not evident to us now, but if it were a play, the ending has changed.
However, the place where the change is most dramatic is inside North Korea. Even though Kim Young Nam, Supreme People’s Committee’s Permanent Chairman, said that there is no abnormality in Kim Jong Il’s health, the fact that he did not appear in the 60th anniversary event can only be attributed to a serious health issue.
Inside North Korea, even if the health of the “leader” is poor in actuality, whether or not such news is public knowledge makes a huge difference, due to the objectification of news that is reported to the outside media. In a dictatorial regime, the vacuum in leadership implies a vacuum in the state.
If Kim Jong Il cannot help but be bed-ridden, he is probably considering who will be his messenger, and if that person cannot be trusted, then who will monitor and check upon the person and how long that messenger should last and when he should be replaced, and so forth and so on.
It is hard to say who will be that person, but if that messenger possibly demonstrates an attitude which represents power, then he will probably not last long either. The messenger will be aware of that fact and Kim Jong il himself will try to use someone who is acutely aware of it, so that the messenger cannot replace Kim’s authority. Therefore, if Kim Jong Il is able to give orders, there will not be a huge change in North Korean society.
Kim Jong Il has been strengthening the dictatorship for at least 30 years, so in this area, he knows his art. He knows very well that the dictatorship regime will not leak if he tightly holds onto it at an important point. Also, there are ways to require the strengthening of rewards and punishment regarding monitoring and restraining of Party members, military men, and the elites. No matter what, “punishment” will become stricter. Amidst this, Kim Jong Il will secretly enter the process of selecting a successor based on close relatives and people around him.
However, if the process takes too long, then it is doubtful whether the Kim Jong Il regime can continually sustain stability amidst instability. It is a situation in which he has to intermittently or continuously lie ill without ensuring a stable successor system.
If one were to broadly divide North Korea’s modern history, one can demarcate it by North Korea before and after the 90s’ food crisis. This is a blunt division, but is not totally meaningless considering the change in the political history and means of living (reduction in provisions and expansion of the market), the changes in the power structure that includes pre-societal poverty and corruption, the change in the lifestyle and mentality of citizens, and disadvantageous international relations.
North Korea after the 90s saw the entry of a plethora of outside information (from China and South Korea) and the interests of citizens about the outside increased significantly as well. Also, people’s lifestyles changed from having the Party taking care of needs to having to fend for themselves. Compared to the pre-’90s, this change is significant. As for the means of sustenance, a method which requires contact with the outside (China) has increased.
It will be impossible for the news of Kim’s health to not spread inside the North in near future. Nowadays, the rate of news reaching North Korea is extremely rapid due to cellular phones. It will be difficult to hide issues that occur inside the North for a long time. If the elite and average civilians find out about the deterioration in Kim’s health, then a change in the current system will be longed for all the more.
Also, significant change can happen such as fissure and tension within the basic structure, which consists of family, kin, the Party, the army, and key figures inside the Cabinet with Kim Jong Il as the core member,. However, rather than through rapid change, it will take place slowly and cumulatively. However, in this process, it will be difficult for Kim Jong Il to make epochal decisions on nuclear abandonment and reform, and the possibility is high that he will only focus on self-defense. And of course, it is difficult to predict a “group guidance system.”
It is the reality that time is no longer on Kim Jong Il’s side. Such an immovable, physical truth will overcome Kim. Until now, time was always on the General’s side… The democratic South Korean and U.S. governments with their fixed terms of office were powerless in front of Kim Jong Il’s slow-attack.
However, from now on, Kim Jong Il will be pursued by time. The offense and defense will change.
In the future, the task of our administration is how to build cooperative U.S. – China – South Korea relations regarding the future of North Korea, the Korean peninsula, and Northeast Asia. Experts must try to find a smart and realistic way in this area.
Now, the homework for those experts has become clearer.
