The Son Also Surprises
Reclusive Kim Jong Il's even more reclusive eldest child makes an unexpected public appearance
By George Wehrfritz and Hideko Takayama with B. J. Lee in Seoul
NEWSWEEK
May 14, 2001You may soon be named heir apparent in one of the world's most reclusive, repressive and downright odd kingdoms - so what do you do for fun? When immigration officials at Tokyo's Narita airport took a look at the Dominican passport of a man named Pang Xiong last Tuesday, they had more than a few such questions.
"HE DIDN'T LOOK like a Latin American, and he didn't speak Spanish," said a passenger in line behind the crew-cut Pang, who was built like a wrestler gone to seed. Authorities interrogated him and his companions - two young women and a 4-year-old boy - for several hours, until he admitted his true identity. "I am the son of [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong Il," he allegedly admitted. And, he added, "I wanted to go to Disneyland."
That's all Japanese authorities needed -and perhaps wanted - to know. On Friday they deported Kim Junior on an All Nippon Airways flight to Beijing (the 10-person party - which included six Japanese officials - took the entire upper deck of the 747). The three-day delay allowed Kim's release to occur after a delegation from the European Union had left Pyongyang, thus saving his father a serious loss of face. NEWSWEEK has learned that Japan's National Police Agency, angry at the kid-glove treatment afforded the prisoner, leaked word of his detention to Nippon Television and lobbied Japan's Justice Ministry to charge Kim with violating immigration laws. After a fierce debate, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided to let Kim go, saying, "his identity was not confirmed."
The world, though, should be more interested in the younger Kim, Jong Nam, both because so little is known about him and because the future of North Korea may well depend on what kind of man he is. Last week's brief glimpse presented a man who, from his generous paunch to his diamond-studded Rolex, seemed accustomed to luxury. (The two women with him were presumed to be his wife and a nanny for the boy, thought to be his son.) "Kim Jong Nam admires things that are prohibited to North Koreans, such as traveling to capitalist places," a senior South Korean intelligence official told NEWSWEEK. "He likes money more than anything else."
That's hardly surprising given the life of privilege he has led. As a boy, Jong Nam is remembered as being spoiled, ill-mannered and, at times, downright mean. The best picture of his early years comes from an estranged cousin, Lee Hanyong, who defected to South Korea in 1982. After writing a tell-all book about the North's first family, he was assassinated by northern agents in the hallway of his Seoul apartment in 1997. Inside Kim Jong Il's official residence, known as Pyongyang No. 15, Jong Nam got most everything he wanted - however extreme. In one revealing incident from the mid-1970s, the boy suffered a painful toothache but refused to see a dentist. When his father asked what gift might change his son's mind, Jong Nam said: "A car as big as yours." According to Lee, the boy allowed the dentist to extract his rotten tooth, then received a dark blue Cadillac from daddy.
Lee's book depicts a family in thrall with cultural items forbidden in the communist North. He estimates that 75 percent of the books in the Kim home, as well as most television programs and movies, came from the South. Lee, who read young Jong Nam bedtime stories, says the boy's favorite book was "Anne of Green Gables." The child also loved a certain South Korean comedian. When he demanded to see the actor live, officials searched the countryside until they found a look-alike, then trained the stand-in to deliver the routine. "Jong Nam, who was only 8 at the time, knew the man was a fake," writes Lee. "He said, 'I know this isn't real'" then stormed off to his room.
A few years later, Kim Jong Il sent his eldest son to study in Moscow (he has at least two other sons and a daughter). But the boy returned two months later after reportedly complaining "the toilets were dirty." Kim then packed him off to Geneva, where he attended an international school for two years.
At about this time, Kim Jong Il separated from his wife, actress Sung Hae Rim, who moved to Moscow to receive treatment for depression. Jong Nam returned home and was said to have attended college at Kim Il Sung University - then disappeared from view for the next 10 years.
In 1997, Pyongyang watchers began to see signs that Kim Jong Il was grooming his eldest son as his political heir. According to a North Korean intelligence official now exiled in China, Jong Nam was assigned a high post inside the Korean People's Army's secret police, a much-feared agency that maintains Army discipline and punishes defectors. The job provided Jong Nam, a man average North Koreans refer to as "The Little General," with his first real contact with the North's top brass.
Jong Nam also plays a leading role in North Korea's efforts to develop an export-oriented software business. Two years ago, according to unconfirmed news reports, he was tapped to lead a government committee established to develop an elite cadre of computer experts. The government has constructed a flashy computer center in the capital that promotes domestic software engineering and courts foreign IT investment. "Software development doesn's require that much money to get started, and it relies mainly on brainpower," says a Japanese businessman who visits Pyongyang frequently. "That's why North Korea is so eager to put their energy into this field."
The latest signal that Kim Junior's star is rising came on April 15. On that day, NEWSWEEK has learned, sympathetic Korean residents living in Japan convened in Pyongyang to celebrate North Korean founding father Kim Il Sung's birthday. To their surprise, they were lectured by Worker's Party officials on Kim Jong Nam's "outstanding qualities." "Those in attendance took it as confirmation that a succession announcement is on the way," says Lee Young Hwa, a professor at Kansai University in Osaka. Intelligence sources in Korea and Japan now forecast that Kim Jong Il could declare his son his chosen successor as early as next February, when the nation will celebrate the Dear Leader's 60th birthday.
Pyongyang watchers speculate that, in addition to accompanying his young son to Tokyo Disneyland, Kim Jong Nam may have planned some amusement of his own: a visit to the city's famed electronics district, Akihabara, to shop for computers and other high-tech gadgets.
He's probably been there before: after his deportation, local media, citing Japanese intelligence officials, alleged that Kim toured Japan on two previous occasions - the first in 1995 - using forged passports.
He probably won's be back any time soon. The North still holds more than 10 Japanese hostages, most abducted from Japan prior to 1990. Tokyo demands their safe return as a precondition for establishing full diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. Japanese human-rights activists are livid that Kim wasn't held, as one of them put it, "as a political card." North Korea's most pampered child must realize he got very lucky last week. If he tries such a stunt again, the next place he goes might be jail.2001 Newsweek, Inc.