Choe Ryong Hae, down but not out

So he’s alive, and obviously still fairly influential. This delegation would represent one of the highest-ranking North Korean delegations South Korea will have received for several years.

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Update: More from Ju-Min Park of Reuters and Anna Fifield of The Washington Post, who observes:

The trip — the first such high-level visit in more than five years — comes at a time of intense speculation about North Korea’s leadership, given that Kim, the third generation leader of the communist state, has not been seen in public for a month.

It also comes amid a steady stream of disparaging comments from both sides, with Southern president Park Geun-hye recently calling for the international community to help in “tearing down the world’s last remaining wall of division” and the North calling Park an “eternal traitor” in response.

The North Koreans clearly have some political purpose for sending such a senior delegation, and consequently, a lot of people are now speculating about why. One purpose may simply be to tamp down foreign speculation about coups and disunity within the regime, and by sending both Choe and Hwang, Pyongyang has sent the two people who are best qualified to do that. Hwang and Choe may also be carrying a message about Kim Jong Un’s whereabouts. They could be carrying an olive branch. They could also be carrying a threat. If your answer is, “Who the hell knows?,” you answered correctly.