Chosun Ilbo: Kim Jong Il’s Health Failing Rapidly
If he looks like Jagger in Vegas at 4 a.m., there might be a reason:
The health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is rapidly deteriorating, prompting the hasty decision to name his third son Jong-un as heir apparent, sources told the Chinese press. The Global News, a sister paper of the official People’s Daily, on Thursday quoted a foreign ambassador in Pyongyang as saying that Kim Jong-il’s fragile health made the situation in North Korea “very complicated.” [….]
A North Korean source in Beijing said Beijing-based North Korean officials from Ponghwa Hospital, which is treating Kim’s illness, are looking to import expensive medical equipment, which has become contraband since the North conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. Pyongyang is also seeking to import an emergency helicopter from overseas. “Kim seems to be in serious condition,” the source added. [Chosun Ilbo]
So, we sanction helicopters and defibrillators, and send them cognac, cigarettes, and processed pork products for the greater humanitarian good.
If your life’s legacy is wrecking your nation’s economy, making it an international pariah/laughingstock, and starving off a couple million of its people, could there be a sense of urgency to do even worse as you feel the reaper’s breath on the back of your neck?
North Korea’s nuclear test and imminent test of an intercontinental ballistic missile is an attempt to reduce the power vacuum and hand over a stable regime to Kim Jong-un, the source speculated.
Since early this year, Kim Jong-il has tripled the frequency of so-called “on-the-spot guidance” to local areas and military units across the country out of impatience to hand over power to his son before it is too late, the source added.
Failing that, you could always order people to make something up:
Thanks to his great leadership the DPRK has greeted an era of new leap and is dashing like the wind toward the eminence of a great prosperous and powerful nation, intensifying the drive to bring about a great revolutionary surge.
His forced march for field guidance is an energetic leadership which instills the source for great innovation and great leap forward into the minds of all the army and people and helps them display their mental power like an erupting volcano and an extraordinary leadership which puts the speed of advance for building an economic power onto the highest level.
His footsteps of forced march for field guidance are immortal ones which build a gigantic monumental edifice to be recorded in history which would take tens, hundreds of years for others to do. [KCNA]
If this is true, let me add my own wishes for a swift and permanent resolution to General Secretary Kim’s illness (may not be work safe).
Related: More Kremlinology stuff here. The military, not surprisingly, is moving in to fill the power vacuum.
Whether His [formerly] Porcine Majesty expires this year or not, my prediction is that the DPRK cannot withstand the withering onslaught of the below listed factors for another year:
* transfer of power to the kid (Kim Jong un);
* international sanctions that are crippling even the pretense of an economy;
* another harsh winter with little or no domestic harvest (READ: mass starvations);
* proliferation of hand held media devices;
* balloon launches that will most certainly puncture the hermetic seal with deadly blows (Christian encouragement to the Underground Church to hold on – the change is coming and the zealous South Korean missionaries will arrive soon with humanitarian assistance);
* loss of overt Chinese support;
* declination of the Juche cult even in Pyongyang;
* burgeoning black/free market economy;
* aging population of the old Kim Il-sung establishment;
* high-level defectors revealing deeply help, closely guarded DPRK intelligence.
Please feel free to add to your list, but unless the chinese underwrite this train wreck, Pyongyang will collapse without significant warning. Hopefully the USFK brass is calculating this as closely as the ROK governemnt and defense establishment is.
The return of banking sanctions, and any added shipping of contraband we disrupt, could collapse the regime, I think, if Obama can hold course better than Bush.
Anyway — I’ll be curious to see reports from NK after Kim dies to compare to when his father died. I want to see how well the cult has worked for son compared to father.
When the father died, it really looked like NK society was in sincere despair.
And that was before the famine. I wonder what they’ll look like when the son goes?
Is it really wise to push a politically unstable, armed to the teeth, nuclear power into a corner? Isn’t that what we’ve all feared about Pakistan?
If collapse is in the cards, everyone’s woefully unprepared for this scenario.
Well, Jack, I would definitely agree with you judging by Comrade Obama’s inept handling of foreign affairs and security issues, but there are some US military leaders out here who ‘get it’, and some ROK military leaders who are war-gaming the inevitable.
The wildcard is China; if the UN Command Forces fail to move swiftly into a post-Juche Pyongyang, the PRC just might beat them to it. That would be a less-desired interim solution that falls short of reunification. The buffer-state, Chinese vassal might present the quagmire that will dog the PRC for a generation, but let’s hope that the UN Command will act decisively. Pyongyang will collapse, and I believe sooner than many are ready to deal with.
With Pakistan, we’re worried about better proven nukes falling into the hands of radical Islamics groups or the radicals already in Pakistan’s government.
The fear with NK is sort of opposite – you fear its nukes in the hands of the government not the people should the government collapse.
There is real reason to worry about a potential lashing out of the regime as it collapses. But you have to factor in with that the number of North Koreans who are going to be killed and the number forced to face a living hell as long as the regime remains.
And the bottom line is — the North is going to collapse one day. Nobody knows how much longer it will go – a year? ten years? —- is anybody’s guess.
But, it will collapse. We will have to face the potential wost case scenarios no matter what we do.
Isn’t it likely to be better if we try to influence the collapse and prepare for its aftermath?
It would be harder to be ready for the collapse perpetually. But, if we use pressure to increase the likelihood of collapse while planning resources to use to stabilize things once the regime is gone, I think we’ll be acting smarter than just sitting and waiting for the inevitable.
I think that is where China is being short sighted. If it really worried about minimizing the fallout from a NK collapse, it would try to get the rich nations like the US, Japan and members of the EU to agree to pour in material and financial aid when collapse does come. It could push for these commitments of help as it accepts putting pressure on NK to either fundamentally reform or face regime-ending sanctions.
NK can’t survive indefinitely. The only question is whether we want the chance to condition the collapse or just wait for it to come…
Great post, usinkorea. I agree wholeheartedly – the smart money is on cooperating with forces assisting in the collapse and immediate stabilizing of the former DPRK. Humanitarian aid will go far in establishing a first impression of the ‘outside world.’
I do not think the PRC is all that invested in securing the DPRK’s nukes as the PRC was never a serious target of NK’s belligerence. The PRC is also not a major target of Islamist terrorism although China’s Western rivals are. China may have a strategic interest in obfuscating the UN’s stabilizing of the post-Juche NK.
I saw that Chosun piece a couple of days ago in Korean. That it apparently was published in a government-affiliated magazine. I say “apparently” because I wasn’t able to locate the original Chinese article, which makes me a little suspicious. Chinese netizens are prolific publishers and circulators of fake news stories.
Isn’t it amusing that the KCNA article’s title begins with the word “Undying”? I guess North Koreans know Kim’s time is pretty much up.
“Well, Jack, I would definitely agree with you judging by Comrade Obama’s inept handling of foreign affairs and security issues”–
KCJ, President Obama is actually at the moment heading in a hopefully better direction in terms of his North Korea foreign affairs security issue than his predecessors. I know you hate the man and everything he stands for, but surely you are an intelligent person who can see past blind hatred.
a listener, I do not hate the man though I detest his marxism and his suck up to Islamic terrorists.
I also acknowledge that the situation in NK could certainly spell a better direction for our policy if he has the courage to act on opportunities that present themselves. But he has done nothing but talk so far. In his blathering he has denounced the war in Iraq (“war of choice“) and appointed the worst envoy to NK of all time, Chris “Kim Jong” Hill as ambassador to Iraq. I am an OIF veteran and I was in Baghdad when it fell. Comrade Obama’s rhetoric and actions re: Iraq is deeply insulting to veterans, Iraqis and encourages our enemies at home and abroad. So forgive me if I am not filled with optimism about his Korea policy.
Comrade Obama is actually taking the US domestic policy in the direction of the DPRK in its heyday, so I am dubious about his stand against KJI and Juche. But what can we expect from a guy who has never run so much as a candy store who is now in charge of the United States of America?
jeen-cha? jung-mahr?
too bad it doesn’t seem like the ceaucescu moment won’t happen. darn it.
for those who are new to the forum due to all the media about NK, here’s a great recap. kind of like the recap before the final LOST episode of the season:
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090619-714363.html
Could be a nascent Ceaucescu moment budding in Tehran. The media is really pounding the YouTube/Twitter/FaceBook angle. Makes you wonder how this situation might play in the DPRK if they had even a tiny bit of exposure to the www.
If nothing else, the Juche priests are no doubt upset that they have been upstaged again.
KCJ + usinkorea: I do agree that collapse is inevitable. My point is that it seems that many of the powers that be have their proverbial heads in the sand in some sort of collective denial. Sure, there are a lot of people thinking about it – but that’s a hell of a lot different than actually laying down some concrete action items in preparation. I would say this especially for the Chinese, the most “status-quo” driven actor in the region. If the Chinese were really serious about sudden regime collapse, there are certain things that they would be doing – including massive troop redeployments as well as really beefing up the security along the border (instead of the token measures they’ve installed at the moment).
The humanitarian aid is already there. (Or should I say, was already there before the North Korean belligerence made it impossible for donors to ship the 1 million ton shortfall of food North Korea suffers every year). Apart from the immediate military goals of establishing some kind of order after regime collapse, one of the things governments really need to think about is how they’re going to establish a connection with the North Korean people – whether it be in the hostile, wavering or loyal classes. From that perspective, it’s not governments that actually might not be the best actors to do this. Rather, it may be actually be Track II stuff that involves NGOs that can do this more effectively. For instance, the myriad of NGOs that assist North Korean defectors. Or the hundreds of Christian groups that are in North Korea now and have set up bakeries, orphanages, TB clinics et al. In fact, a friend of mine related an anecdotal story about how his church had help set up an orphanage in North Korea and he had to establish a relationship with his minder. Before eating a shared meal, the minder asked him “don’t you have to do something before you eat?” When the (supposedly clandestine) Christian missionary asked what he meant, the minder smiled and said:
“Only Christians come into North Korea.”
Those Christians are going to have an immediate beachhead in North Korea once the regime falls. They realize that for the time being, they need to cooperate with the regime – but when the perspective is a long term (or perhaps more correctly, a “far sighted”) approach waiting for regime change to come.
Jack,
I’m not sure if you’ve seen my posts before here, but you are singing my tune, friend. KJI and the Juche god-makers fear nothing so much as the zealous SK missionaries. You have correctly analyzed the role of the missionaries (I think your word beachhead is apt) and their pivotal actions in the immediate aftermath of a collapsed DPRK.
Your other point about dealing with the average KN citizen is also dead on the money and outside of a few agitators like me (I am in the military and in Korea) there hasn’t been much movement in this area. This is quite unfortunate as we have learned by painful experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that the people are the most important ‘terrain’ in modern warfare, and NK will be no different. Can’t say more, but know that there are some of us on the ‘inside’ who are promulgating this very message.
I think the next major wave of balloon launches could be the dart that punctures the seal once and for all. Thanks for your very, very insightful comments!
Little WEE man wants to make his big mark before he dies. I think all the north Koreans that also believe he is a wack job should leave the country as soon as possible. I believe hell is comming.
I’m not going to get started with KCJ again. Here’s a link.
Gee nkmatters, I hope readers will follow the link you posted. Seeing what is going on in Iran right now, that discussion is more relevant than ever.
🙂
Oh. Thank you for your very fitting and Christian response. I feel loved. 🙂
I have no illusions that readers of this Korea blog will follow the link I posted. It was more intended so that you would follow the link, because I didn’t want to have the same discussion again. Or, I didn’t want to pay for the same horse twice, if you will.
Thank you for also implying that all discussion on other matters should be thrown out the window when there is a crisis in the Middle East. Admittedly, the extent of my knowledge of Iran is whatever CNN, youtube, and Christopher Hitchens feed me. Sorry I don’t feel the need to regurgitate that info or make weak historical references.
nkmatters, I have no idea what you are talking about re: “other matters should be thrown out the window when there is a crisis in the Middle East…”
I didn’t imply any such thing. Until OFK blocks my participation on his blog, I am welcome to post my opinions just as you are. You don’t have to read them.
FWIW, I am in Korea, so I think I have a tiny stake in matters here.
re: re: “other matters should be thrown out the window when there is a crisis in the Middle East…â€
I didn’t imply any such thing. “Seeing what is going on in Iran right now, that discussion is more relevant than ever.”
That discussion was regime collapse…which is relevant to this post. Sadly, not to Iran I suppose.
Mutually agreed – let’s ignore each other.