Kim Jong Il: Unfit Even For Dictatorship?
Point and Counter-point
October 21 & 22, 2002

Kim Jong Il: Unfit Even For Dictatorship By Chuck Downs Wall St Journal Oct. 21, 2002 North Korea calls itself "the Kim Il Sung nation" in honor of the dictator who, if you believe North Korean propaganda, ruled flawlessly for almost 50 years. When it appeared Kim Jong Il would take over that role from his aging father, intelligence analysts around the world questioned his mental stability, political support, and basic intelligence. Some predicted that the regime's collapse might occur within days of Kim Il Sung's death in July 1994. Such predictions proved false as Kim Jong Il ruthlessly consolidated power in the years following his father's death, but his recent mistakes at home and abroad again call into question his abilities. *** In July, Kim decided to stage a shake-up in North Korean economic policy. He ordered prices and wages raised in what appeared to be an attempt to bring some realism to state-run stores, where goods are in short supply. The result has been massive inflation: Rice costs 30 times more than it did before the price hikes; electricity is 60 times more expensive. These changes were clearly undertaken in the name of Kim Jong Il himself and based on orders he is known to have signed. It was also Kim Jong Il who, on Sept. 17, speaking directly with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, admitted that his government had kidnapped and abducted Japanese citizens, including a teenage girl on her way to school. The 13 were abducted to serve as translators, spy trainers, and spouses for terrorists in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Il apparently expected this admission to be welcomed in Japan as a positive indication of new openness. It seems not to have occurred to him that the government of Japan actually cares about so small a number of abducted citizens, and would demand a full accounting on the issue. On the heels of the Koizumi summit, Kim Jong Il suffered another terrible embarrassment, this time at the hands of his ally, China. He put his imprimatur on a grand scheme to develop a North Korean province on China's border. With a stroke of his pen, he granted autonomy to Sinuiju province where he proposed to remove the 500,000 current inhabitants and replace them with "young, technically qualified" workers. The beneficiary of Kim's largesse was a family friend, Chinese businessman Yang Bin, who was to be named governor of the tax haven and given substantial profits from its enterprises. North Korea's neighbors tend to encourage any economic measure that might provide livelihoods to keep North Korea's starving population in place, but in order to attract investment to Sinuiju, the province had to offer benefits more attractive than neighboring Chinese provinces. For a Chinese citizen to engage in such a scheme was problematic for Beijing, and Yang Bin was arrested on charges of tax delinquency. Members of the Pyongyang elite have close ties to Beijing and could not help but notice how China embarrassed Kim Jong Il and destroyed his pet project. Most important, however, is the recent failure Kim Jong Il suffered at the negotiating table with the U.S., the consequences of which have yet to be seen. Faced with American intelligence that proved North Korea had violated its most significant bilateral pact with Washington, Kim's hand-picked adviser for American matters, Kang Sok Ju, was instructed to admit the regime had engaged in an illicit nuclear weapons program. This defiant assertion of noncompliance marks a change in North Korean negotiating tactics that is likely attributable to Kim Jong Il himself. Under Kim Il Sung, negotiations on military matters were guided by deception and delaying tactics. The elder Kim cleverly managed negotiations over a suspected nuclear program until he was actually paid to halt what he claimed did not exist. This may show that the younger Kim is less artful than his father, but it also shows something more elementary: The second-generation dictator is a thug who relies on cold, hard threats. His objective was to intimidate the U.S. He may be doing so in an effort to extort financial advantages for his failing regime, or he may be doing it because he believes that the U.S. will become embroiled in a distracting war with Iraq that will give him opportunities for military adventures of his own, perhaps to fulfill his wish of bringing all of Korea under his command. Analysts of North Korea are generally disposed to perceiving an extortionist motive. But if his objective is to extort additional financial tribute in exchange for appearing to give up military capabilities, Kim's plan was poorly thought-out. First, Americans are not resigned to "living in fear," as President Bush put it, and extortionist tactics are unlikely to succeed. Second, the U.S.'s major aid contribution to North Korea has been in support of the agreement North Korea just claimed it nullified. Could Kim Jong Il and his advisers not have noticed that the violations they admit to are also, even more clearly, violations of North Korea's 1992 agreement with South Korea on the de-nuclearization of the peninsula? The vast majority of North Korea's financial assistance -- in excess of half a billion dollars annually -- comes from South Korean trade and the current South Korean government's conciliatory "sunshine policy." *** Kim Jong Il's power in North Korea is absolute, but with absolute power come certain responsibilities. Will the elite begin to doubt Kim Jong Il's ability to handle the complex set of issues his actions have generated? We cannot peer into the halls of government in Pyongyang to see what the elite are thinking, but we have some information from people who have escaped. The most valuable, high-level defectors to come to South Korea have paved their way with contacts in the People's Republic of China. They have gained diplomatic passage through China because they have friends in the Chinese Communist party who helped them escape. If members of the ruling elite build foreign contacts in hopes of fleeing North Korea, how hard can it be for them to imagine a North Korea without Kim Jong Il? When the actions Kim Jong Il takes so clearly embarrass the regime and threaten the elite's continued livelihood, how long can it be before those who are most imperiled by his errors decide they need new leadership? Mr. Downs, a former Pentagon official, is author of "Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy" (AEI Press, 1999).

Reader's Comment by J. Justin Im <justinim@yahoo.com> Time and again, I am surprised at how scholars and diplomats who have purportedly studied and followed North Korea continue to underestimate Kim Jong Il's almost-Machiavellian ability to survive. While I do not mean to accord any more credit to Kim Jong Il's abilities as a politician than is necessary, I thinks it helps to look at some hard facts about North Korea, before drawing any premature predictions about the likelihood of the demise of Kim Jong Il. Why did Kim Jong Il so suddenly admit the existence of North Korea's nuclear weapons program and its kidnappings of Japanese citizens? 1. As Drs. Kissinger and Brezynski pointed out on CNN two days ago, North Korea (that is, Kim Jong Il) has simply been responding to the sudden change in U.S. policy towards North Korea. 2. In the 1990s, the Clinton and Kim Dae Jung Administrations--driven by their own self-interests--decided that North Korea could be prodded into joining the international community. All that North Korea had to do was simply make empty promises, and it got what it wanted, at the expense of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. 3. However, the Bush Administration has now placed North Korea squarely on the "axis of evil." Even worse, Kim Jong Il's biggest ally in the peninsula, Kim Daejung, who has become an international embarassment, will be out of office in a matter of months. In other words, North Korea no longer has any gains to be made from the international community by continuing to make its false promises. 4. Hence Kim Jong Il's admission to the U.S about its nukes program and to Japan about its Japanese kidnappings. Neither of these admissions should really come as a big surprise to anyone. Crudely put, they were more a gesture of "eat this," than "sorry you were right all along." But what does North Korea stand to gain from such admissions? The answer is: more survival. A. North Korea clearly understands that whether the U.S. likes it or not, China, Japan and South Korea are together far more willing to put up money and other types of aid to North Korea to diffuse any crisis than risk a nuclear arms race in the Korean peninsula. B. North Korea also understands that the U.S. will not act unilaterally towards North Korea. For one, the Bush Administration simply doesn't have the imminent self-interest that it does in the Middle East (oil). Secondly, notwithstanding all the "don't mess with Texas" and "leaning forward" rhetoric of Bush and Rumsfeld, the Bush Administration knows that if the U.S. were to attack North Korea, the North Korean army would prove to be far more formidable than Iraq's army, and could easily overwhelm the U.S./ROK joint services and destroy the capitalistic South in a matter of days, if not hours. North Korea, as with everyone else, knows this. C. As for the Sinuiju project, it does not matter whether or not it was truly a free-market project, nor has Kim Jong Il lost anything from its failure. To the contrary, in the next round of negotiations with the international community, Kim Jong Il can now make a very strong and believable argument that he is genuinely (however untrue) interested in making this project work and that the international community should help him in this effort, with money and other kinds of capital. How will the U.S., Japan, South Korea, or even China be able to turn down this rare opportunity to "capitalize" North Korea? D. While the defections of North Korean officials could appear as a sign that Kim Jong Il's grip on power is weakening, Kim Jong Il may in fact be further consolidating his power base. When his father would have simply ordered disloyal aides to be executed, Kim Jong Il now lets them flee and tend for themselves in South Korea (which really doesn't mean a better life for them anymore). It's a relatively small price to pay for eliminating potential problem-makers and nay-sayers down the road. In sum, while I join all those who sincerely hope that the current North Korean problem would be resolved soon (be it thru the fall of Kim Il Jong or not), I urge all those more immediately involved with formulating and advising on the U.S. policy towards North Korea to practice more caution before predicting or preparing for the downfall of Kim Jong Il any time soon. JJI