MUCH LIKE the imprecise but once highly developed science of Kremlinology in Stalin’s day, the study of North Korea’s opaque, dynastic politics depends largely on counting how far from “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il a rising star stands at a military parade. Or what new songs schoolchildren are singing. Pyongyang’s are now extolling in a new hymn the military skills of military neophyte, 27-year-old “Commander Kim”, raised yesterday to four-star general by his father, and, it seems, the chosen heir of the autocratic dictator whose health is said to be fading.
A draft lecture note for army cadres recently intercepted by South Korea eulogises previously unknown Kim Jong-un as a “legendary person” who received the same “holy blood” as his father. His shooting skills and knowledge of military technology are lauded. “He is a genius with exceptional talent,” the document claims. “Anybody who meets him . . . wants to worship him.”
The baton is gradually being passed to Kim, it appears, much as his grandfather Kim Il-sung passed it on to his son Kim Jong-il well before his death in 1994, naming him to a senior post in the all-important army in this the most militarised society in the world. One in three of the country's 23 million citizens is in full-time service or the military reserves, and the army's place is enshrined in the principle of songun, "military first", the cornerstone of the one-party state's ideology.
It is expected the younger Kim will soon be given a leadership role in the North Korean Workers’ Party to consolidate the family’s extraordinary grip on the succession. His uncle, Jang Song-Taek, chairman of the National Defence Commission, and the latter’s wife, yesterday also promoted to general, are also centrally placed in the state apparatus, effective regents for the inexperienced Kim should his father not last long.
The announcement was made ahead of the opening yesterday of the most important meeting of the party congress for 30 years. It takes place as the impoverished and hunger-ridden North tries to work around UN sanctions, adopted in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear tests and programme.
North-South tension has been inflamed by the provocative sinking in March of the South’s naval ship Cheonan. Some observers believe the sinking may have been the work of conservative elements in the army unhappy at the leadership’s willingness to return to international talks on the country’s nuclear programme. There have been indications that a struggle is also under way inside both the party and military between economic modernisers, strongly encouraged by China, and an old guard jealous of any external influence.
Such subterranean struggles will mean Kim’s accession may not be as smooth as the family hopes. The apparent monolithic stability of the Stalinist state, sustained by brutal repression, may also be illusory, a “paper tiger” in the words of Mao Zedong. There is a real danger of a collapse of the country, triggering a flood of refugees or even fighting on the divided peninsula. Kim’s legacy is far from secure.