North Korea after Kim Jong-il

Four days into 2012, North Korea launched a vitriolic attack on South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, calling him a "pro-US fascist maniac” and a "chieftain of evils without an equal in the world".

The reason for this outburst was not hard to find. A report by the secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said Lee had "rubbed salt into the wounds of the grief-stricken people" in several ways. He had stopped South Koreans from crossing the border to mourn the death of the North's 69-year-old leader, Kim Jong-il; had not expressed official condolences; and had placed the military on a heightened state of alert.

North Korea’s belligerent rhetoric is nothing new, but it does underscore the difficulty that the country’s change of leadership poses for other countries.

Lee ended the South's conciliatory "Sunshine Policy" toward the North, and he further infuriated the North Korean government by tying food aid to progress on nuclear disarmament. He responded cautiously to news of Kim's death, saying that amid the uncertainty, a "window of opportunity" had opened for better relations with the North. But he also warned that his country would "respond strongly" if provoked.

North Korea specialist Marcus Noland, of the US Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, saw Kim's sudden death as triggering heightened uncertainty. The North's closed and chaotic economy is insignificant – in 2009, its estimated GDP was US$28 billion, just three per cent of that of South Korea. But if food shortages worsen, and if new leader, Kim Jong-un (Kim’s youngest son) has difficulty consolidating power, the end result could be greater political and military instability in the region.

Nolan said there were signs North Koreans were switching from rice to cheaper corn, which showed “things are getting tighter".

The United Nations estimates that almost three million of North Korea's 24 million people will need food aid this year.

Joanna Spear, an international affairs specialist at the US' George Washington University, feared North Korea might try to play out its internal drama on the world stage in an effort to unite the country behind its new leader.

"They are known for manufacturing crises in order to present themselves to their people as protecting the nation.”

This potential destabilisation is even more worrisome given that the global economy is faltering, and is more reliant than ever on the developing economies of Asia.

One possible scenario, says Richard Bush, director of the Brookings Institute's Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, is the emergence of a collective leadership in North Korea that would rule in the name of the Kim family.
Kim Jong-un himself appears keen to reinforce the notion of continuity. The Korea Times quoted North Korean defectors as saying that the new leader looked uncannily like his grandfather, the nation's founder Kim Il-sung, in his attire, gestures and manner of walking.

Such a likeness would be well received in North Korea – 2012 marks the centennial of the birth of his grandfather, who ruled for 50 years.

The designated heir, thought to be in his late 20s, is an unknown quantity. Western-educated, he has had just three years to prepare for leadership, compared with the almost two decades that the elder Kim enjoyed before coming to power in 1994.

Indications are that, at least for now, all is going to plan. State media have called on North Koreans to unite behind the "great successor", who has been named "supreme leader of the party, state and army".  He is also vice chair of the Central Military Commission, the section of the Workers’ Party of Korea that oversees the 1.2 million-strong army.

Kim Jong-un appears to be favouring control of the army through this party body, unlike his father, who controlled the military directly through the National Defence Commission.

But that power shift was unlikely to diminish the military’s significance in North Korea, cautioned Cheon Seong-whun of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. "It can be interpreted as a change in how the regime manages the military but it does not mean that North Korea will be discarding the military-centred policy."

As for the notion that Kim’s death might pave the way for the reunification of the Koreas, Jayshree Bajoria, of US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, said that most experts believed it was only possible in the near term if North Korea collapsed.

North Korea is opposed to reunification, as is China – North Korea’s staunchest ally – which would prefer to keep North Korea as a buffer between itself and democratic South Korea.

Opinion also appears to be shifting in South Korea. A recent survey showed fading enthusiasm for reunification, particularly among the young. This perhaps reflects estimates that welfare spending on North Koreans in the first year of reunification could cost as much as US$217 billion.

Unification minister Yu Woo-ik described the attitude of young South Koreans as worrisome, and said it would be “a cowardly historical act” if South Korea avoided reunification because of money.

Yu could have taken no comfort from a recent pronouncement by North Korea's National Defence Commission.  In December, it declared "solemnly and confidently that the foolish politicians around the world, including the puppet group in South Korea, should not expect any change from us".

By Vaughan Yarwood

Images:
1. The late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. (Photo by www.kremlin.ru, sourced from Wikimedia under a Creative Commons licence).
2. A poster of Kim Il-sung in Wonsan. North Korea's new leader Kim Jong-un is said to bear a strong resemblance to his grandfather.