Vice President of Strategic
Analysis Rodger Baker examines the prospects for political stability in North
Korea following the death of Kim Jong Il.
Video transcript:
North Korea kept the
information about Kim Jong Il’s death a secret for more than 48 hours. This
suggests that the North Korean elite is holding together fairly steadily during
this time of transition.
The current leadership,
despite having differences of personal interest or factional interest, has one
thing in common and that is maintaining the current political system. At the
same time that South Korea, the United States, Japan and China — as well as other
countries — are fretting over a potential collapse scenario in North Korea, so
are the North Korean elite.
North Korea is ruled primarily
by the second-generation leadership. These are the peers of Kim Jong Il, the
sons of revolutionaries liked Kim Il Sung. While North Korea’s first generation
of leadership claimed authority from its role as anti-Japanese fighters and as
fighters in the Korean War, the second-generation leadership really stems from
simply being the children of the first generation. Trained primarily in North
Korea, in the Soviet Union and in the Eastern Bloc countries, this generation
really has little to offer — either in economically changing North Korea or, in
particular, a unified Korea.
Maintaining their elite
status, then, in many ways is the most important thing that they have going.
They are really not necessarily interested in a fundamental alteration of the
North Korean economic structure because that could ultimately undermine their
positions.
The third-generation leadership
— those represented by Kim Jong Un — really do not have the strength yet to
assert themselves within the North Korean leadership structure. Their interest
right now is in biding their time and allowing this smooth leadership
transition so that over time they can more firmly establish themselves within
the elite structure.
Many of this third generation
have been trained abroad, particularly in Western Europe, and some perhaps even
in the United States. Their views of economics, of global interdependencies,
really are far different than those of any of their predecessors in North
Korea. Unlike the second-generation or first-generation North Koreans, most of
this third generation also is untainted by North Korea’s former activities in
infiltration into South Korea or in terrorists’ activities.
They ultimately have the best
chance of retaining their elite status — even in an economically changing North
Korea or in a unified Korea — but not until they reach a critical mass within
the government.
Thus, despite factional and
generational differences, there really is a commonality amongst the North
Korean elite to maintain the current political structure to ensure that this
transition from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un goes relatively smoothly. This
doesn’t guarantee that everything will go smoothly. As we saw with Kim Jong
Il’s transition into power, he had more than two decades where everyone knew he
was going to be the successor to Kim Il Sung, and it still took him more than
three years to firmly establish himself. But at least in the short term what
we’re seeing in North Korea is all of the various elements of the elite trying
to pull together to maintain the current political system and to maintain their
elite status.
Stratfor, december 20, 2011
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