Kim Jong-il debate is baffling

A British expert on Korea has given a fresh answer to the current growing controversy over why de facto North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has not yet become head of state and party: Kim gains by not formally taking the top jobs. The Jakarta Post's Asia Correspondent Harvey Stockwin takes a look at the issue.

HONG KONG (JP): Controversy has arisen because, fifteen months after the death of President Kim Il-sung, who was also Secretary- General of the Korean Workers Party (KWP), these two key posts are still vacant. Kim Jong-il appears to be in charge but has not yet formally asserted his role as leader of North Korea.

The controversy consists, on one side, of those Korea-watchers who maintain that Kim Jong-il is behaving as the dutiful Confucian son, mourning his father (who ruled North Korea from 1947 until 1994) and therefore not putting the Kim Dynasty in place.

On the other side are those who believe the dynasty should have been in place by now, and therefore seek an explanation why it is not. For several decades, ever since Kim Il-sung first fostered his son's career, it has been questioned whether there could be, for the very first time, a successful dynastic succession in a communist state. North Korea's continued vacancies at the top have resurrected these doubts.

Now leading North Korea-watcher, Aidan Foster-Carter, head of the Korea Project at Leeds University in England, writing in the Asian Wall Street Journal, has postulated a fascinating and exhaustive list of possible reasons why Kim Jong-il may actually find it in his interest to go on "lingering in limbo as long as possible".

Foster-Carter does not reject the dutiful Confucian son explanation but gives it a fresh twist: ". . .the very success of the Kim Il-sung cult has made it genuinely difficult for North Koreans to come to terms with his death. For a regime ideologically underpinned by 'our father' worship, a too rapidly rising son could dangerously puncture the mood of reverence and respect".

Additionally, Foster-Carter postulates that the "Dear Leader's enemies are probably from his father's generation". The power of that older generation will have to be diminished in a variety of ways but this could prove a difficult time-consuming task. So "until then, the strategy calls for keeping one's head below the parapet as regards a formal enthronement".

Professor Foster-Carter advances other reasons of realpolitik for Kim's reticence. Noting that "Kim Il-sung was skilled and ruthless in exposing and expunging his enemies," he suggests that it could be a case of "like father, like son". "Kim Jong-il's limbo status is a useful vantage point from which to watch potential foes plotting, wait until they show their colors --- and then pounce".

In this, and several other ways, Foster-Carter suggests that, in what is in any case an abnormal situation, Kim has more to gain by avoiding any more titles than by assuming them. Thus as long as he avoids becoming President there can be no question of agreeing to a summit with South Korean President Kim Young-sam. Instead, a lesser figure could be appointed titular North Korean President "thereby elevating Kim Jong-il, the real power, to a position above both Presidents".

Another of Foster-Clark's intriguing speculations lies in the benefits of mystery, or what he calls the "poor hand poker ploy". Since North Korea currently posses a weak hand of cards, "the obvious strategy is: bluff, feint and parry. Keep the other guys guessing. Don't expose yourself. Give nothing away. Make no move you don't have to. Why do you need a head of state when you already mystify the outside world on every other issue?"

Foster-Carter proceeds on the assumption that in North Korea, awash in its own uniqueness, it cuts little ice to argue that being without a head of state is abnormal. He also assumes in his argument that Kim Jong-il is "obviously in charge".

Consequently this leads him to avoid any suggestion that North Korea may simply be undergoing the normal process, which has been common to nearly all communist states at the time of succession, of a protracted secretive power struggle.

But he does point out that until Kim Jong-il does assume the positions of head of state and party, "his only formal positions are military: chairman of the National Defense Council, and supreme commander. This suits the top brass."

The question remains: Does the continued possession of only military titles suit Kim Jong-il? Given the lack of information about North Korea, the current controversy must be unending. Those two military positions could signal that Kim's position vis-a-vis the military and the country is either one of weakness -- or one of strength.

Meanwhile the highest-ranking North Korean defector in 25 years says that Kim Jong-il is uncertain of the support of the huge North Korean military establishment as he seeks to consolidate the Kim Dynasty.

If correct, this news would go a long way towards explaining why, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean Workers Party on October 10th, five lieutenant-generals were made colonel- generals, three colonel-generals were made full generals, three generals were made vice marshals, General Choe Kwang and National Defense Committee member Li Ul Sol were elevated to the rank of Marshal --- yet Kim Jong-il became neither President nor KWP secretary-general, 15 months after his father Kim Il-sung died while holding both posts.

Either because he is forced to do so, or because he is shrewdly anticipating a problem, Kim Jong-il gave the military promotions a higher priority than his own.

Doubt arises only because defectors to the South Korea tend to have a low credibility rating. Inevitably they first undergo extensive debriefing. When eventually they emerge into the public domain defectors tend to echo the generally hardline of the South Korean military.

The latest defector Lieutenant-Colonel Choi Ju-hwal is no exception. He defected last June and has only now been allowed to emerge in Seoul to tell his story. He defected within China while representing a North Korean trading company concerned with military procurement. He defected rather than obey an order to return home. His transgression in China had been to mix too freely with South Korean businessmen.

Yet, given the dearth of information about what is really happening in North Korea, Colonel Choi's explanation for Kim's non-promotion has a ring of plausibility. "High-ranking military officers put on an appearance of loyalty to Kim Jong-il", he says, "but many of them question his leadership qualities". He maintains that Kim's character problem is that he is "hysterical, cruel, violent and unpredictable", someone who never hesitates to sack officials overnight for trivial errors.

Colonel Choi confirms, but cannot add details to a story already brought south by earlier defectors -- that a coup was plotted against the two Kims in 1992 by some top military officers, who were caught and executed before they could carry it out.

1992 was the year in which Kim Il-sung made his son Kim Jong- il the supreme commander of the Korean military, but whether the elevation and the attempted coup are connected can only be a matter of conjecture.

But Colonel Choi says that the top North Korean generals are being given luxurious villas and imported Mercedes cars, as well as higher ranks, in an effort by Kim Jong-il to secure their loyalty.

Kim is waiting for the political situation to stabilize and the economic situation to improve before reaching for his father's titles, the colonel says, but North Korea's food shortages remain dire, and the government has not been able to revive the economy.

The defector's most tantalizing statement was that in North Korea "the situation is getting so bad that many people and soldiers want an outright war with South Korea just to see how it would change their miserable lives". He maintains that the army has 1.2 million troops which is 150,000 more than conventional estimates.

Were war to come the North Korean tactic would be to strike first across the Demilitarized Zone at the section held by the United States Army. "North Korean military leaders believe that if attacks were first focussed on the (37,000) U.S troops, and several thousand U.S. soldiers are killed or injured, there will anti-war demonstrations in the U.S."

Doubts arise at this point -- these views could be more a reflection of South Korean fears implanted in the colonel as they are a statement of North Korean reality.

Equally, it would be unwise to blandly assume that the defector's statements are without merit. North Korea's massive military forces are North Korea's one viable although declining asset. The leadership of the country is mercurial enough, and most of the military (who have not been given villas and Mercedes) probably desperate enough, to use that asset and to try one suicidal lunge at prosperous South Korea, in certain circumstances. When North Korea last threatened to go to war, in 1994, former President Jimmy Carter quickly arrived in search of peace at any price, while the Clinton Administration made all sorts of concessions in the desperate desire to reach a nuclear agreement. These U.S. actions, plus the U.S. failure to firmly resist North Korean efforts to dissolve the Korean armistice, and American moves elsewhere in the world, would not have indicated firm U.S. resolve to the North Korean dictatorship.

But Colonel Choi himself had to demonstrate a bitter resolve in order to defect. He concedes that his wife, Cho Hyun-sil, and his three children have probably all been sent to a North Korean concentration camp as a result of his action.

Window A: Either because he is forced to do so, or because he is shrewdly anticipating a problem, Kim Jong-il gave the military promotions a higher priority than his own.

Window B: Were war to come the North Korean tactic would be to strike first across the Demilitarized Zone at the section held by the United States Army.