[Retrospective] Two years in North Korea since Kim Jong-il’s death

Posted on : 2013-12-17 15:34 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Since taking over the leadership, Kim Jong-un has made steady steps toward consolidating power
 Dec. 16. (KNCA/Yonhap News)
Dec. 16. (KNCA/Yonhap News)

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

December 17 marks the second anniversary of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death and two years since his son Kim Jong-un took power. For the younger Kim and North Korea in general, the last two years have been a period of both continuity and dramatic breaks.

Kim Jong-un has been very different from past leaders in his behavior and style. Last year, he signaled a more youthful and open image with a surprise Mickey Mouse performance by the Moranbong band and public appearances at events with wife Ri Sol-ju.

He has also tried to make some changes in steering the economy. During an April 2012 speech for the Day of the Sun, a national holiday celebrating the birth of his grandfather Kim Il-sung, Kim pledged to “see to it that the people no longer have to tighten their belts.” Pyongyang went on to implement cautious economic reforms with a “North Korean economic management program” - a comparable approach to the July 1 Economic Improvement Measures introduced by Kim Jong-il in 2002. The focus was on encouraging work through stronger incentives, including permission for producers to independently manage part of their surplus.

North Korea also worked to bring in foreign capital. Chinese and Russian businesses were brought in to develop the Rason Special Economic Zone. New legislation for economic development regions was enacted in May of this year, and 14 new regions were designated last month.

But it is not yet clear how successful the attempts will actually be. Like the 2002 measures, the new reforms could end up thwarted by a conservative backlash. And the fate of the foreign funding push ultimately depends on how much the international community trusts North Korean authorities’ commitment to political security and profit guarantees.

The situation with North Korea’s South Korea policy, and foreign policy in general, has been much more consistent with the past. Countries have become used to extreme hostility rather than friendly discussions. Pyongyang has stuck to a brinksmanship approach, threatening nuclear tests and military actions as a way of drawing concessions. In April 2012, Kim went ahead with a rocket launch that scuttled an agreement made less than two months earlier with the US on Feb. 29 to halt nuclear development in exchange for food aid. Another rocket was launched in December of that year. When the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) responded with a resolution for sanctions, North Korea responded this February with its third nuclear test.

North Korea appears dead set on developing nuclear weapons. At a plenary session of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) central committee this March, it officially adopted a “two-track policy” of developing nuclear weapons and the economy in tandem. The following month, it amended its Constitution to describe itself as a “nuclear power,” and a new law was enacted for “further solidifying [North Korea’s] standing as a self-defensive nuclear power.” In a May piece in the WPK’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper, it announced that it “has everything, including miniaturized, lightweight, multiple, precision nuclear warheads.”

Meanwhile, it continued ratcheting up military tensions on the peninsula. The UNSC sanctions and combined military exercises by South Korea and the US were used as an excuse for scrapping the armistice agreement that ended combat in the Korean War. North Korea continued raising the threat level by canceling the inter-Korean armistice, entering first combat posture, and announcing a wartime situation. It also raised tensions at the Kaesong Industrial Complex by cutting off military communications, blocking South Koreans from entering, pulling out workers, and calling a temporary halt to operations.

In May, it began pushing for dialogue. The momentum started with a China visit by military politburo chief Choi Ryong-hae. But Pyongyang continues answering Washington’s demands for preliminary steps toward denuclearization with its own demands for dialogue without conditions. Last month, a statement by a foreign ministry spokesperson signaled that Pyongyang had no plans of backing down. “Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is impossible until the US’s hostile policies toward North Korea are completely withdrawn,” it announced.

Dialogue with South Korea resulted in normal operations being resumed at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, but Pyongyang has continued blasting Seoul as the prospects for resuming tourism at Mt. Keumgang remain uncertain.

At home, Kim reorganized the power structure with purges and appointments to cement himself as North Korea’s absolute ruler. Nominated as supreme commander, WPK first secretary, first National Defense Commission chairman, and head of the republic in the immediate wake of his father Kim Jong-il’s death, he set about forcing out his “father’s men” with purges of Chief of General Staff Ri Yong-ho, State Security Department first deputy chief U Tong-chuk, and now Jang Song-thaek. In the process, he installed his own men in powerful posts, including Choi and new SSD chief Kim Won-hong.

Meanwhile, he has also pushed to cement the legitimacy of the third-generation power transfer with an official ideological line stressing “monolithic leadership” and the “Baekdu bloodline” (descendants of founding leader Kim Il-sung). After an amendment to the WPK charter and Constitution in April 2012, North Korea has taken further steps this year to make Kim’s inheritance of the leadership official. One example involved altering the “ten principles” for the monolithic leadership system to list “the doctrines of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il” as the country’s sole guiding tenets.

 

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