North Korean Economy Watch

UPDATE 4: Photos of the aspiring leader have been made public. Daylife.com has all of them here.

UPDATE 3: Just for fun…there appears to be at least one other “Kim Jong-un” in North Korea.  It will be interesting to see if he has to change his name (if he is still alive)!  Here is a KCNA story from April 23, 1997:

Press review
Pyongyang, April 23 (KCNA) — Papers here today frontpage reports that Secretary Kim Jong Il sent thanks and gifts to workteam members of the no. 7 excavator operating in Kumsan pit in Ryongyang mine for their collective innovation and thanks to servicemen and their families for setting examples in army-people relations. Reported in the press is the news that a monument to on-site guidance of Secretary Kim Jong Il, Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, was erected at the unit that defends Cho Islet, a forward military post on the West Sea of Korea. Rodong Sinmun carries a letter sent to Secretary Kim Jong Il by participants in the meeting of senior officials of progressive parties of different countries held in Moscow to mark the 85th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung as well as a statement adopted at the meeting. Minju Joson comes out with an article headlined “Our General always stands on Height 1211”. Conspicuous in Rodong Sinmun is an article titled “devotedly defending headquarters of revolution is foremost mission of people’s army”. The paper gives nearly one whole page to the lyric epic “Supreme Commander and his vanguard soldiers” which is dedicated to heroic soldiers. The Swedish Government decided to take a humanitarian measure for Korea, the press reports. Rodong Sinmun runs an article “Korean-style socialism is the best”, written by Kim Jong Un, who came over to the northern half of Korea while serving in the south Korean puppet army. Papers comment on the disclosure of Kim Young Sam’s bid to conceal the truth as regards the “investigation” into the Hanbo incident. An article of Rodong Sinmun says that the south Korea-stationed U.S. forces’ possession of depleted uranium bullets proves that their moves for war reached an extremely grave phase. Seen in Minju Joson is an article on the triangular military tieup of the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries and the south Korean puppets.

UPDATE 2: Kim Jong-un was also named to the Central Committee of the Korean Worker’s Party.  According to KCNA:

Members and Alternate Members of WPK Central Committee
Pyongyang, September 28 (KCNA) — The following are members of the WPK Central Committee: Kim Jong Il, Kang Nung Su, Kang Tong Yun, Kang Sok Ju, Kang Phyo Yong, Kang Yang Mo, Ko Pyong Hyon, Kim Kuk Thae, Kim Kyong Hui, Kim Kyong Ok, Kim Ki Nam, Kim Ki Ryong, Kim Rak Hui, Kim Myong Guk, Kim Pyong Ryul, Kim Pyong Ho, Kim Song Dok, Kim Song Chol, Kim Jong Gak, Kim Jong Suk, Kim Jong Un, …

Mike has a good summary here.

UPDATE 1: Kim Jong-un has been named to the KWP Central Military Comission.  Kim Kyong-hui has joined th  According to Bloomberg:

Kim Jong Un was elected one of two Central Military Commission vice chairmen at a Worker’s Party of Korea meeting yesterday, a day after he was made a four-star general, the official Korean Central News Agency said. He also joined the party’s Central Committee, though not the more elite Politburo, at a meeting yesterday. His father’s sister, Kim Kyong Hui, was given several high-ranking posts, including politburo membership, KCNA reported.

The Kim family’s tightening grip on the military and party hierarchy underscores the challenge of transferring power to a son who had never before been mentioned in a KCNA dispatch. Kim Jong Un faces an increasingly disgruntled public in an economy squeezed by United Nations sanctions targeted at its weapons programs and a bungled currency revaluation.

“Even Kim Jong Il must be wary of public criticism should his son fail to improve economic conditions,” Paik Hak Soon, director of inter-Korean relations at the Seongnam, South Korea- based Sejong Institute, said before the commission appointment. “Domestic political stability will be Kim Jong Un’s key focus.”

Kim Jong Il, 68, was re-elected as party chief, general secretary and chairman of the military commission, KCNA said.

…

China’s President Hu Jintao congratulated Kim Jong Il on his re-election, pledging to strengthen ties with his country’s communist neighbor “to a higher level,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported today, without mentioning the son. Kim Jong Il made an unprecedented two trips to China this year, prompting speculation he was seeking endorsement of the power transfer from his nation’s main political and economic ally.

Here is the original KCNA story:

Central Military Commission Organized
Pyongyang, September 28 (KCNA) — The Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea is as follows:

Chairman Kim Jong Il, Vice-Chairmen Kim Jong Un and Ri Yong Ho and Members Kim Yong Chun, Kim Jong Gak, Kim Myong Guk, Kim Kyong Ok, Kim Won Hong, Jong Myong Do, Ri Pyong Chol, Choe Pu Il, Kim Yong Chol, Yun Jong Rin, Ju Kyu Chang, Choe Sang Ryo, Choe Kyong Song, U Tong Chuk, Choe Ryong Hae and Jang Song Thaek.

ORIGINAL POST: Kim Jong-un and Kim Kyong Hui named 4-star generals in KPA.  According to Yonhap:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has made his third son a military general in the clearest signal yet that Kim Jong-un is on track to becoming the next leader of the nuclear-armed communist state.

The promotion was announced early Tuesday through the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), just hours before North Korea was to hold its biggest political convention in three decades.

At the conference drawing top Workers’ Party delegates from across the nation, Kim Jong-un, whose name has never been mentioned in public and believed to be no older than 28, could be given other political posts, including one with the Politburo.

The KCNA report said Kim Kyoung-hui, the 64-year-old sister of Kim Jong-il, has also been promoted to a four-star general along with Choe Ryong-hae, a long-time aide to the Kim dynasty.

Kim Kyoung-hui, who oversees the country’s light industries, has recently emerged as a possible caretaker for a hereditary power transfer because Kim Jong-un lacks experience and support.

Her name was mentioned before Kim Jong-un’s in the KCNA dispatch.

Kim Jong-il, 68, is widely believed to have suffered a stroke in the summer of 2008 and since tried to make his third son his successor in what could be the communist world’s first back-to-back father-to-son power transfer. Kim took over the regime when his father and North Korean founder Kim Il-sung died in 1994.

Kim Jong-il officially became successor to his father in a Workers’ Party gathering in 1980. In a directive numbered 0051, Kim named a total of 39 generals on Monday, the KCNA said. Six of them, including Kim Jong-un and Kim Kyoung-hui, were four-star generals.

“The appointment clears the way for Kim Jong-un to forge deeper ties with power elites,” a South Korean Unification Ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in a briefing in New York that his country is “watching developments in North Korea carefully.”

“North Korea has now made it official,” Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said. “It is certain that Kim Jong-un will be named to a high-level Workers’ Party post in the upcoming convention.”

The KCNA said Kim Jong-il “firmly believes that the commanding members of the People’s Army will continue to support the leadership of the party and complete the revolutionary exploit that was first begun in Mt. Paekdu,” which symbolizes the Kim dynasty.

In a separate dispatch, the KCNA said Ri Yong-ho, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, was promoted to the rank of vice marshal in a possible sweetener for the military class, whose support is crucial for Kim Jong-un to solidify his power.

Kim Jong-un was educated in Switzerland during his teens and is believed to resemble his father in appearance and personality. He has been shrouded in secrecy, and photos of him are extremely rare.

It remains to be seen whether the North’s official television media will unveil Kim Jong-un in its footage of the Workers’ Party convention on Tuesday.

“For one thing, blood is stressed much more in North Korea as something that defines character,” Brian Myers, a professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, said in comments e-mailed earlier. “In a culture where myth and charisma are so important, the masses need a hero figure in the ‘glorious Paekdu tradition,’ not a faceless bureaucrat or a group of army officers.”

So there are several “big” stories in KCNA today.  Kim Jong-un’s (son of KJI) and Kim Kyong Hui’s (sister of KJI) promotion to KPA general and Kim Jong-il’s “re-election” as general secretary of the Worker’s party.  Here are the stories:

Kim Jong Il Issues Order on Promoting Military Ranks

Pyongyang, September 27 (KCNA) — General Secretary Kim Jong Il on Monday issued Order No. 0051 on promoting the military ranks of commanding officers of the KPA.

He said in his order that all the servicepersons of the People’s Army and people are now significantly celebrating the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea with unbounded reverence for President Kim Il Sung who made a new history of building a revolutionary party in the era of independence and strengthened and developed the WPK into vanguard ranks of revolution with high prestige and invincible might.

He stressed that the WPK born from the deep and strong roots struck in the anti-Japanese revolution has honorably discharged its mission and duty as a political staff of the Korean revolution since the very day of its founding and performed immortal exploits to shine long in the history of the country.

The KPA is demonstrating its might before the world as a powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu after growing to be a strong army of the leader and the party, devotedly defending the headquarters of the revolution with arms and performing heroic feats to shine long in history in the defence of the country and building of a thriving socialist nation, he noted.

Expressing the firm belief that the commanding officers of the KPA who have grown up under the care of the party and the leader would creditably discharge their honorable missions and duties as the mainstay and main force of the revolution in accomplishing with arms the revolutionary cause of Juche which started in Mt. Paektu, remaining true to the Party’s leadership in the future, too, he issued an order on promoting the military ranks of KPA commanding officers on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the glorious Workers’ Party of Korea.

It is noted in the order that the military ranks of Kim Kyong Hui, Kim Jong Un and Choe Ryong Hae and three others are promoted to general, the military rank of Ryu Kyong to colonel general, the military ranks of Ro Hung Se and Ri Tu Song and four others to lieutenant general and those of Jo Kyong Jun, Jang To Yong and Mun Jong Chol and 24 others to major general.

Here is the story about Kim Jong-il’s re-election as general secretary.

Additional Information:
1. Here is coverage in the Washington Post.

2. Here is coverage in the New York Times.

3. Here is an article in the Taipei Times on Kim Kyong Hui (Kim Jong-il’s sister).

4. Here is a post about the first known (in the West) official mention of Kim Jong-un’s name in the DPRK–not in the official media.

5.  Here is information from Bradley Martin and Mike (NK Leadership Watch) on Choe Hyong-rae.

6. According to the Daily NK, North Koreans were not at all surprised by the announcement.

7.  The Daily NK has information on Ri Yong-ho.

Read the full story here:
N. Korean leader names his youngest son as general
Yonhap
Sam Kim
9/28/2010

North Korea has released official photos of the delegates arriving at the Pyongyang train station for tomorrow’s party conference.  I have posted them below.  All photos via Daylife.com.

Caption: A man walks past a sign in Pyongyang September 26, 2010. North Korea’s ruling party will hold its biggest meeting in decades on September 28 to pick a new leadership, state media reported on September 21, and likely anoint an heir to the dynasty as Kim Jong-il’s health deteriorates. The sign reads, “Congratulations. Conference of the Worker’s Party of Korea”. Picture taken September 26, 2010.

Caption: In this photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service, delegates to the ruling Worker’s Party meeting make their way upon arriving at Pyongyang station, North Korea, on Monday Sept. 27, 2010. North Korea holds its biggest political meeting in decades Tuesday, amid intense speculation that members of leader Kim Jong Il’s family will assume key positions in the ruling party to solidify their rule for another generation.

Caption: Party delegates from rural areas arrive to attend a meeting of the ruling Worker’s Party of Korea in Pyongyang September 26, 2010, in this picture released by North Korea’s KCNA news agency on September 27, 2010. North Korea’s ruling party will hold its biggest meeting in decades on September 28 to pick a new leadership, state media reported on September 21, and likely anoint an heir to the dynasty as Kim Jong-il’s health deteriorates. Picture taken September 26, 2010.

Caption: Party delegates from rural areas arrive to attend a meeting of the ruling Worker’s Party of Korea in Pyongyang September 26, 2010. North Korea’s ruling party will hold its biggest meeting in decades on September 28 to pick a new leadership, state media reported on September 21, and likely anoint an heir to the dynasty as Kim Jong-il’s health deteriorates. Picture taken September 26, 2010.

Additional Information:

1. The New York Times covered the arrival.  Read the story here.

2. Mike has more at NK Leadership Watch.

According to Yonhap:

In a clear indication North Korea is paving the ground for a power succession, a Web site operated by a university in the communist state is calling for picking the right successor to leader Kim Jong-il, possibly alluding to his son.

“Only when the successor to the leader is selected right can the leader’s ideas and revolutionary exploits be firmly maintained and spectacularly passed down,” said a post on Kim Il-Sung Broadcasting University’s website, uriminzokgangdang, seen here on Wednesday.

Citizens in South Korea, which bans the communist state’s propaganda material citing years of enmity between them, are blocked from accessing the Web site at http://www.ournation-school.com.

…

The uriminzokgangdang post, written in early September in the form of an answer to an apparently pre-arranged question, also said the successor must establish exclusive authority because, until that happens, political turmoil could emerge.

“Not everyone can be a successor to the leader, and just because someone is presented as a successor, it does not mean he can carry out significant tasks as such,” it said, making it clear that the country faces a “succession issue.”

Uriminzokgangdang means “lecture hall of our nation” in English.

…

It was not immediately clear where the Kim Il-sung Broadcasting University is located. Media reports from Pyongyang indicate the school is based in the capital. The university has been operating its Web site since 2004 to give online lectures on such topics as the ideology of “juche” or self-reliance.

Yang said the school appears to be based in Pyongyang since it bears the name of North Korea founder Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994 after years of grooming his son, Kim Jong-il, as his successor.

Does anyone know if this web page is accessible on the DPRK’s Kwangmyong intranet system?

Also, I cannot find any information on this university.  Can a reader who is fluent in Korean please go through their web page and find the school’s Korean name, English name, picture and address (if any of this information is available)?

Read the full story here:
N. Korean website raises succession issue ahead of key party meeting
Yonhap
Sam Kim
9/15/2010

Kim Kwang-jin, a defector from Pyongyang and research fellow at the US-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, offers his thoughts on the status of the Worker’s Party conference:

From the perspective of Western world and media, the delay of Party Representative Conference in North Korea, if there really is any, is interpreted and speculated as very unusual. For us in the West, such “long delay” is unusual because we convene meetings to hear our different views, not orchestrated by the regime.

For North Korea, who have a system of full guidance and instruction, it is usual to fix things in order before having a final performance. The so-called delay is actually time to coordinate Party representatives’ roles in the event and instruct them what to do.

It is a stretch to assume that the North Korean elite is far less united now and some fractions are unhappy about the meeting and the result, and Kim Jong-il is growing more unable to exercise full power, as has been suggested.  More speculation of logistical problems, floods, and Kim Jong-il’s inability for reasonable judgment and rational decisions are added. But these are not the real components of North Korea’s usual efforts at orchestration of an event. This is a celebration, not a discussion.

There may be a delay in securing enough gifts to reward the participants.  This is the most important element for both Kim Jong-il and the representatives, in a system of enforcing a decision and celebrating a political decision. Getting all the gifts together would be a real reason for such a delay.

North Korea itself never announced the exact date of the meeting. And finally, let us remind ourselves that North Korea loves drawing international attention and is very good at it. This time, their tactics already succeeded in producing an extreme reaction, not thanks to their skill but to the western way of thinking and approach.

Additional information:

1. See Andrei Lankov’s thoughts about the conference here and here.

2. The Daily NK asserts that the conference is affecting food prices.

Andrei Lankov has written some interesting thoughts on the delay in the much anticipated Worker’s Party conference.  According to Lankov:

By its nature,  the media is supposed to report events, especially those events which are seen as important or unusual. When elections are held, terrorists bomb an airliner or an UFO is spotted over New York, this is news. The media outlets usually remain silent when an airliner safely arrives and no Martians are seen walking in the Central Park.

This is understandable, but sometimes it is very important when some event does not happen – especially when the reason for the breach of pattern is not clear. But, understandably enough, such non-events attract much less media attention.

It seems that last week we all were witnesses to such a non event. The international media eagerly awaited news from Pyongyang where a conference of the ruling Korean Workers Party (KWP) was scheduled to take place. Indeed, in July the North Korean media officially informed the world that the KWP would soon have a party conference – the first party conference in 44 years and a first formal gathering of the KWP representatives in 30 years.

This was a rare event, so it attracted much attention. It was almost universally expected that at the conference Kim Jong Il will make public the name of his successor, and few people doubted that it is his youngest son, Kim Jong Eun who will become the next ‘Sun of Korea’.

The official media was quite specific about the conference dates. It was said that the conference would be held in the first ten days of September. The North Korean documents contained a term which unequivocally refers to a period from the  1st to the 10th day of month.

Taking into consideration that authorities are clearly in control of the timing of such an event, the international media was on alert since the first days of September.  Some sources leaked the supposed exact starting date for the coming conference, but people in the know remained skeptical: they are well aware how unreliable are the political rumors which merge from North Korea. Nonetheless, journalists, diplomats and spies expected that the conference would happen last week, as officially proclaimed.

It did not. Now, it is September 13 already, so the official deadline has quietly passed, but nothing has been heard about the conference. For a while there were speculations that the conference met clandestinely. However on Friday, the 10th of September, Nodong sinmun, the mouthpiece of the North Korean government, published an editorial where it mentioned the conference as one of many glorious events which will happen in North Korea in near future. This editorial attracted much attention since it made clear that, first, the conference has not taken place and, second, that it was not cancelled, but postponed.

Predictably, the non-event did not become a major news. Only few specialized publications noticed it. Nonetheless, the decision to postpone the conference is unusual and might be politically significant.

Had not Pyongyang authorities made a clear and unequivocal statement about the conference schedule, this would not attract much attention. But the government is in control. Last but not least, the delay is sending the wrong signal to the people who might start wondering why a much publicized event did not take place on time. The government’s obvious inability to keep its promises on such trivial matters will damage its standing in the eyes of the public, and will make them wonder whether everything is normal at the top.

Indeed, this is something to wonder about. It is difficult to believe that the conference was postponed due to, say, some logistical problems: it is not too difficult to house a couple of thousand representatives, and moving them around town for few days would hardly constitute a major challenge even for such a poor nation. So, there are good reasons to suspect that something in Pyongyang went wrong again, and the longer the delay is, the greater the scale of these unknown problems is likely to be. However, even if the conference will open amongst the usual pomp later this week, the inability or unwillingness to convene it as initially scheduled still should not be ignored.

So, what might have gone wrong? Since we are dealing with North Korea, which is frequently described as the “world’s most secretive society”, nothing is known for sure, and one has to remain skeptical even in regard to the rumors which are likely to start emanating from North Korean in near future. Nonetheless, some possibilities should be considered.

First, it is possible that the North Korean elite is far less united than it is usually assumed, so some factions are seriously unhappy about the likely choice of successor and/or expected composition of the new leadership (a formal appointment of new top officials is an important part of the conference ritual). They might have managed somehow to block the conference, while Kim Jong Il is unable or unwilling to restore the order. This fighting might unroll among the top functionaries of the regime, but it might as well be an internal feud within the ruling family among whose members, one must suspect, not everybody is happy about the recent choice of successor.

Second, the delay might reflect something more sinister – the growing inability of Kim Jong Il to pass reasonable judgments and make rational decisions, his tendency to follow impulses and emotions.  Indeed, in the last two years of strange and seemingly irrational things began to happen in North Korea with alarming and growing frequency, with its policy becoming more erratic. Among examples of such actions, one can mention the gross diplomatic mistakes of 2008-09, a badly planned (and unsuccessful) currency reform, and the recent sinking of the South Korean warship in disputed waters. The list can be easily continued. Many long-time Pyongyang watchers have recently developed the impression that the North Korean top leadership is doing strange things, things which do not make much sense, and it is not coincidental that the first signs of such erratic behavior appeared in early 2009, shortly after  Kim Jong Il suffered a serious illness, presumably a stroke.

If this is the case, it is not impossible that Kim Jong Il just decided to have a conference when he felt like it, but then cancelled or postponed it, without thinking twice about the political impact of such decision. Such sudden changes of mind are not unexpected when we deal with a stroke patient, but this particular patient seemingly has a complete control over the nuclear-powered nation of 24 million.

Last but not least, it is also possible that Kim Jong Il is now too sick to make an expected public appearance at the conference (this view seems to be widespread in South Korean ruling circles). Yes, as recently as September 11 the North Korean media reported his trip to a mine in a distant northern part of the country, but no date of the trip was disclosed (and such reports can easily be fakes).

Many other plausible explanations can be – and, at all probability will be – suggested, too, but one thing seems to be fairly certain: something unusual is happening in Pyongyang these days. If the conference will not meet in the next couple of weeks we can be sure that the situation is very unusual indeed.

The mine Lankov mentions above is the “March 5th Youth Mine.”  The DPRK released some photos of Kim Jong-il visiting this mine.  You can see them here, here, and here.  Here is the story in KCNA.  The March 5 Youth Mine is located in Junggang County (중강군) at  41°42’46.97″N, 126°48’45.64″E.  Can anyone match up the satellite imagery with the photos of Kim Jong-il?  I think the satellite imagery may be too old.  Kim Jong-il also reportedly visited the mine on January 29, 2008.

UPDATE: This artilce was later published as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.  You can read it here.

According to the Washington Post:

Almost every night, seeking to gather opinion from a country where opinion is often punishable, Kim Eun Ho calls North Korea. He talks mostly to people in Hoeryong city in Hamgyong-bukto province, and the conversations never last long. Hoeryong city employs 14 men who monitor the region’s phone conversations, Kim believes, and typically they can tap a call within two or three minutes. Kim says he knows this because, as a North Korean police officer before he defected in December 2008, he sometimes monitored the conversations.

But these days, with Pyongyang preparing for a Workers’ Party convention that could trumpet the rise of leader Kim Jong Il’s youngest son, Kim Eun Ho and other defectors who speak regularly to North Koreans hear plenty of opinions reflecting what he described as a broad sentiment against hereditary succession.

“Of 10 people I talk to,” he said, “all 10 have a problem with Kim Jong Eun taking over.”

Just as North Koreans know little about their potential future leader, the rest of the world knows almost nothing about North Korean opinions. Recent academic research, based on surveys with defectors, suggests that North Koreans are growing frustrated with a government that allowed widespread starvation in the early 1990s and orchestrated brutal currency reform in 2009 that was designed to wipe out the private markets that enable most residents to feed themselves.

The defectors are motivated to emphasize the worst-case scenario in their homeland. There are some who think that Kim Jong Eun will take power and gradually lead North Korea to Soviet-style reforms. Some defectors say that even though the younger Kim is largely unknown, they hope he’ll allow for a free economy after his father dies.

Still, in South Korea, an emerging patchwork of mini-samples suggests that many North Koreans view their government as a failed anachronism, and they see the young general, as he’s called, as a sign of the status quo. They associate Kim Jong Eun with the December 2009 currency revaluation. They don’t know his age – he’s thought to be in his late 20s – but they think he’s too young to be anything more than a figurehead.

Sohn Kwang Joo, chief editor of the Daily NK, a Seoul-based publication focusing on North Korea, receives frequent reports from stringers in four North Korean provinces. Those ground-level reporters, gathering information mostly from intellectuals, farmers and laborers, suggest to Sohn that “eight or nine out of every 10 people are critical of Kim Jong Eun.”A recent report from PSCORE, a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization promoting harmony on the Korean Peninsula, suggested that two party officials were sent to a gulag last month for slandering the chosen heir. Kim Young Il, a PSCORE director who was in China during Kim Jong Il’s recent trip, said: “Criticism of Kim Jong Eun is very strong. . . . What you see now is face-level loyalty, but it’s not genuine.”

Kim Eun Ho, the former North Korean police officer, works as a reporter for Seoul-based Free North Korea Radio. The nightly routine testifies to the difficulty of gathering information from within the world’s most reclusive state.

Kim first calls a friend who lives close to the Chinese border, where a smuggled foreign cellphone receives a clear signal. When Kim reaches his friend, the friend uses a second phone – a North Korean line – to call one of Kim’s police sources in Pyongyang. The friend then places the North Korean phone and the Chinese phone side-by-side, volume raised on the receivers, allowing Kim an indirect, muffled connection.

For extra caution, the conversations rely on code words.

“For general citizens, Kim Jong Eun is vastly unpopular,” Kim says. “People cannot take him seriously, in reality. He just suddenly appeared, and he’s too young.”

A defector-based survey released in March, co-written by North Korea experts Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard, provided the first sharp indication of growing discontent with Kim Jong Il’s regime, linked in large part to an information seal that no longer keeps everything out. North Koreans have access to South Korean television shows. Some travel to China for business.

For now, though, experts and U.S. officials see little likelihood that North Koreans’ closely guarded skepticism about their government will pose a threat to the government. Without churches and social clubs, North Koreans have few places where opinion can harden into resistance.

“They’ve almost perfected the system of social control,” says Katy Oh Hassig, an expert on North Korea at the Institute for Defense Analyses, which does research for the Pentagon.

Like Kim Eun Ho, Jin Sun Rak, director of Free North Korea Radio, calls his old country almost every night. His wife and 14-year-old daughter live in North Korea. He decided to defect – telling nobody but his brother – in 2008, after traveling to China and seeing the relative wealth. The first time he went, hoping to sell 80 grams of unrefined gold, he bribed a border guard and carried a dagger, tucked near the lower part of a leg. His first night in China was “beyond imagination.” He said he went to a restaurant, had some drinks and ended up at a karaoke bar where he knew none of the songs. Days later, he returned to North Korea with some money and a new frame of reference.

“Whenever they say something,” Jin said of the government, “they’re lying. They’re as worthless as barking dogs.” As for a greater cynicism about the government, Jin said: “I think it’s something unstoppable now. People’s minds have been changed. Young people know the value of money. They don’t want to be party members anymore. They’ve been exposed to the private markets.”

Jin, who lives in Seoul, rarely talks to his wife and daughter. He doesn’t think it’s safe to tell them his opinion.

Read the full story here:
N. Koreans may be frustrated with government and likely rise of Kim Jong Eun
New York Times
Chico Harlan
9/8/2010

Andrei Lankov writes in the Asia Times:

In the next few days, a large gathering of North Korean officials is expected to open in Pyongyang. This is an unusual event, to be sure, so it attracts much attention in the world media.

However, even a cursory glance at different publications demonstrates that many journalists and commentators who write on the issue do not quite realize what type of political gathering to expect. The function is variously described as a “meeting”, “convention”, or even as a “party congress”. The last description is wrong (the coming event is explicitly not a party congress) while the two others are far too nebulous. After all, the final match of the football World Cup could be described as a “meeting of 24 well-trained individuals for the purposes of physical exercise”. Factually true, but it does not tell us much about the nature of the event.

The misunderstanding can be easily explained by the changing spirit of the times. In the late 1940s, North Korea borrowed from the Soviet Union the basic structure of a communist state, and has kept it ever since.

Such states were once common, and in the 1970s the Western media would not be so clueless about the nature of such an event. However, nowadays, a Leninist state is a seriously endangered, almost extinct, species, so the younger generation of journalists is clearly at loss (nowadays, they probably are better informed about the specifics of various Muslim sects). Therefore, some background information is needed – if you like, a short memo on how North Korean state operates.

So, what is going to happen in Pyongyang soon? In the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) statute the scheduled event is defined clearly: this is a “party conference”, a gathering of the (supposedly) elected representatives of KWP members where specific issues of current policy are discussed.

The KWP, like all Leninist parties, is a rigidly centralized structure, somewhat akin to a military organization. However, for some reason those parties kept a number of institutions that were designed to appear democratic. Those were largely vestiges of a long-gone era, a reminder of times when in the early 1900s communist parties – or rather their predecessors – indeed had a vibrant internal democracy. Since then, the ostensibly democratic features have been kept partially out of respect for established tradition, but largely for propaganda-cum-decorative purposes.

One of those pseudo-democratic fictions is the system of party elections. The party-state is run by a hierarchy of committees, with the central committee and its powerful bureaucracy being the pinnacle of the entire structure, a central government in everything but name.

The party committees at all levels are essentially self-appointed. Communist functionaries become members of the central committee pretty much in the same way as the Catholic clergy become cardinals – they are appointed by the current leaders, but not without consulting and lobbying at the lower levels. At any rate, no elections are involved. Lower-level committees are manned in a similar manner.

However, on paper the committees – including the central committee – are elected. In the Cold War era most communist parties once every few years staged a large and pompous convention that was known as a “party congress”. This was where the new central committee was “elected”.

Actually, the elections were a fiction, pure and simple. The congress obediently voted for a candidates’ list that had been drafted weeks or months beforehand by the central committee bureaucracy and approved by the leadership. The tradition required that support for the list during a public voting ritual should be unanimous, and this indeed was the case.

The party representatives who attended the congress – and they could number in thousands – were themselves selected through a similar procedure: appointed by the local party apparatchiks, they were then formally “elected” by the relevant party groups.

Some of the representatives were prominent bureaucrats and officials, but a majority came from the party rank-and-file. Exemplary milkmaids and steel workers were dispatched to the congress to demonstrate the broad support communist rule allegedly enjoyed among the ”masses”. Nobody expected from them any meaningful discussion of political issues, and in most cases any attempt at such discussion would be promptly suppressed.

A party congress had other important functions. It was the place where the party supreme leader, usually known as its “general secretary”, delivered a speech in which he described the achievements of the party as well as the universal love and admiration it enjoyed among the people.

He also used the opportunity to criticize scheming enemies and remind about the need to remain vigilant. These speeches could be very lengthy. For example, in 1956, Kim Il-sung, the founder of the North Korean state and father of present dictator Kim Jong-il, spent six hours reading a voluminous text of such speech, and during party congresses in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, Leonid Brezhnev, the top Soviet leader, usually spent three of four hours reading similar texts in his less then audible voice. Kremlinologists, however, unlike the unlucky audience, had a field day with these speeches since among the boring nonsense there were some important hints that could indicate the direction a particular state was going to take.

Indeed, the party congresses (and conferences, of which more later) were largely convened to convey important messages about policies while also staging an only too transparent show of ”party democracy”. It is important to remember that no discussion took place at a congress of a ruling Leninist party.

The decisions were drafted well before a conference/congress began, were always voted through unanimously and without addition or amendment. The speeches of the participants were also usually checked and censored beforehand, and in the entire history of the communist bloc there were very few cases when a representative making critical comments about the system or leaders. Usually, the representatives extolled party wisdom, the greatness of its leaders and struggled to describe how great and selfless their own love of the system was.

The party statute stipulated that a congress should be convened at regular intervals, usually once every five years. After the 1950s, most communist countries complied with this demand.

Party statutes also stipulated that a minor version of a congress could be convened if the party leadership considered it fit. The minor version was known as a party conference (and this is what is going to meet in Pyongyang). Officially, a party conference met to discuss peculiar questions of current policy, but in real life it was, essentially, a minor version of the party congress. Generally speaking, the conferences were much less common then congresses.

In the Kim Il-sung era, North Korea, however, was remarkable in its relative disregard for legal niceties. The KWP’s statute has all the necessary articles, copy-pasted from Soviet regulations, but these have been ignored.

Throughout its 65 years history, the KWP has had six congresses, but none of them ever met within the officially prescribed interval. The last KWP congress took place in 1980, and was the venue at which Kim Jong-il was officially and publicly proclaimed the successor to his father. The next congress was supposed to meet five years later. It has never met (and the coming convention will be not be a congress, but a humbler conference).

The KWP’s party conferences took place twice, in 1958 and 1966. Both times they were convened to formalize the results of severe purges in the top leadership and ”elect” new leaders, free from “unmasked anti-party enemies”. After a 30-year hiatus, most observers came to the conclusion that North Korean leaders had decided to get rid off the pseudo-democratic institution altogether.

The “military-first” policy and the obvious attempts to play down the KWP’s role also strengthened such understanding. It was known that even central committee meetings were discontinued, so after his father’s death in 1994, Kim Jong-il has run the country with a remarkable disregard to institutional formalities.

However, in recent few years it seems the trend has been reversed: the KWP or, rather, its bureaucracy or people who have made a career within the party, are beginning to reassert themselves, slightly pushing the military aside. Decisions to convene a conference – ostensibly to publicly anoint the next hereditary dictator – seem to be another sign of these quiet changes.

But why did the North Korean leaders choose to convene a conference that is clearly a lower-level, less formal and less prestigious gathering, and not a full-scale party congress? The reasons might be economic. In North Korea it has become an established tradition that a party congress should be accompanied by lavish celebrations and expensive gifts to both the elite and the general public.

In 1980, when the KWP congress was last convened, humble housewives were given fresh fruit, mid-level officials were handed wristwatches while their superiors could even get a Japanese-made refrigerator. This tradition was burdensome, and in the mid-1980s Kim Il-sung complained to Soviet diplomats that he would like to have another congress but could not afford it due to the poor economic conditions of the country. The conference, on the other hand, is not expected to be celebrated on such a lavish scale.

These economic considerations seem to be the reason why in Pyongyang we are going to see the third KWP conference, not the seventh KWP congress. Nonetheless, in practical terms, the difference between those two events are negligible.

Whatever the name, what should we expect? No policy debate will take place, for sure. The participants, overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, will be men in their 40s, 50s and 60s, clad in badly tailored suits, who will unanimously vote for all resolutions, showing outbursts of enthusiasm when instructed to do so. There will be some important statements, most likely related to the succession – otherwise, it would not make sense to convene the conference. Those statements will move the representatives to tears – if earlier North Korean propaganda is a clue, we are likely to see an entire hall of weeping functionaries.

A lengthy speech about the current situation will be delivered. In all probability it will not be done by Kim Jong-il, who seldom speaks in public, but by some other dignitary (the name might be important, since the person is likely to play a major role in the years ahead). The speech will be worth careful reading since it will have some important hints on the country’s course. Equally important for political analysts will be the lengthy lists of newly appointed officials.

At any rate, it will be a bit of a show. The world has not seen anything like this for years – China and Vietnam still hold similar gatherings, but their functions have lost much of their earlier flavor. So, the conference itself is a slightly bizarre reminder of a bygone era, and it is not impossible that it will become one of the last gatherings of this type to take place in front of an international audience.

Read the full story here:
North Korea blows off the cobwebs
Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
9/8/2010

Andrei Lankov writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Kim Jong Il’s apparent trip to China last week has excited more speculation over succession planning for the ailing North Korean dictator. That trip was widely interpreted as a way to introduce Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong Eun, to the leadership of Pyongyang’s most important ally. But that is not necessarily the most important step in this process. Far more interesting may be the move afoot within Pyongyang to establish the younger Kim as the unquestioned next in line.

A few weeks ago the North Korean authorities announced that in September the ruling Korean Workers Party will hold a conference—essentially, a simplified version of the Party Congress. Such conferences are few and far between. The last Party conference took place in 1966 and the last Party congress met in 1980. These serve solely as rubber stamps for decisions that have already been made, whether on policies or appointments to key posts. In a Leninist state, Party gatherings are chiefly venues where such decisions are announced with the greatest possible pomp.

An extraordinary gathering generally is convened only to announce an extraordinary decision—after all, the last Party Congress was convened in 1980 to announce the anointment of Kim Jong Il as heir-apparent to his father. Few doubt that this time this decision will be about the succession. The world will probably “learn” that Korea has been lucky to acquire another genius of leadership who, of course, was born into the ruling Kim family.

This will be a high-stakes moment for the regime. A change of leader is bound to produce expectations of other changes. Indeed some major news outlets already speculate that Swiss-educated Kim Jong Eun might initiate some Chinese-style reforms. He is young, merely 27 or 28 years old, and has spent much of his time outside the country—all factors that could suggest a greater willingness to reform. But do not hold your breath. The young man appears to be favored by many within the regime precisely because he is the least likely person to change anything—in the short term, at least.

His apparent weaknesses are his greatest selling point so far as other leaders within the regime are concerned. As a candidate he perfectly fits the old guard, those people who now run the country together with Kim Jong Il. If Kim Jong Il is going to die soon, his youngest son, being weak, embarrassingly young and lacking a power base of his own, is almost certain to become a puppet. Whatever he secretly thinks about his country’s future, for the first few years of his reign he will have no choice but to obediently sign the policy papers drafted by the same people who have prepared such papers for his father.

Indeed, there are signs as the succession process unfolds that those currently in the upper echelons of the regime are taking steps to protect their positions. A car crash recently killed Ri Che Kang, Kim Jong Il’s deputy for Party affairs (North Korea has almost no traffic, but a surprising number of high-level officials die in car accidents). If this was an assassination, it could have been a result of jockeying for positions within the elite.

In a more clear-cut sign of power positioning, a North Korean rubber-stamping parliament held an unusual emergency session where Chang Song Taek, Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law, was promoted to become the deputy chairman of the National Defense Commission, essentially making him a vice-president.

The contours of a new power system are emerging. The old guard, probably presided over by Mr. Chang, will supervise a young and obedient prince. What that old guard wants is simply more of the same. They believe that North Korea, facing a rich and powerful South, cannot survive Chinese-style reform. The existence of the “dirty rich neighbor” whose population speaks the same language makes North Korea’s situation very different from that of China. In the peculiar case of North Korea, an attempted reform is likely to lead not to China-style economic boom but to an East German-style collapse. The top elite also understand that in such a case they will loose everything, including, perhaps, their freedom. Hence their strong drive to keep things unchanged.

This does not mean that these efforts to preserve the status quo will succeed. Internecine hatreds and rivalries might surface, with power struggles destabilizing the regime from the top down. The young dictator might become annoyed with the old guard, or vice versa. The probability of dramatic events happening in Pyongyang is certainly increasing.

The major goal of the North Korean elite now is to drive this probability down. The new power structure is being designed to keep things unchanged, and on balance it is likely, but by no means certain, to work. Alas, for the outside world it means more years of nuclear brinksmanship, and for the North Korean people more years of abject poverty.

Read the full story here:
Pyongyang’s New Leader for the Old Guard
Wall Street Journal
Andrei Lankov
8/29/2010

UPDATE 4: Chinese government confirms Kim Jong-il visit.  According to Evan Ramstad in the Wall Street Journal:

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il met Chinese President Hu Jintao during his five-day visit to northeast China, the Chinese government confirmed Monday night as Mr. Kim left the country, in a surprise get-together that underscored their solidarity as they cope with pressure from the U.S. and other countries to act more responsibly.

The announcement was the climax of what appeared to be a coordinated public-relations push by China on Monday, beginning with stories in several media outlets praising the China-North Korea relationship while also saying Beijing shouldn’t be held responsible for Pyongyang’s provocative actions.

The meeting happened Friday, though China, as it has done with Mr. Kim’s previous visits, waited until he left the country to say he had been there.

In the initial reports confirming the meeting between Messrs. Kim and Hu, China’s state media said that Mr. Kim wanted a resumption of the six-nation talks aimed at striking a bargain for denuclearizing North Korea. They also hinted that Mr. Kim was interested in the economic overhauls that opened China to the world, though they didn’t say he endorsed or would follow them.

Mr. Kim for years has resisted requests of Chinese leaders to open up North Korea’s economy. Late last year, his regime tried to clamp down on market activities but halted the effort when the government couldn’t feed people.

Mr. Hu said on state TV that China should expand its economic cooperation with North Korea. Since Mr. Kim’s entourage was spotted in China on Thursday, analysts have speculated that one reason he made the trip was to seek more money and assistance for the impoverished North.

Analysts also speculated that Mr. Kim brought his expected heir-apparent, son Kim Jong Eun, to meet Chinese officials ahead of a political meeting in Pyongyang next week that may be the son’s public debut in North Korea. The Chinese news reports about the visit did not mention the son, however.

“I think there are other two issues Kim wants to talk about with China,” said Jin Hanyi, head of Northeastern Asian Research Institute at Yanbian University in Jilin. “North Korea recently had a bad flood and, with international sanctions against it and the failure of monetary reform, Kim wants to discuss how to deal with these awful messes,” Mr. Hanyi said. “Second, North Korea will hold a Workers’ Party meeting next month and he wants support from China for new policies.”

Mr. Kim’s entourage twice during the trip stopped in places associated with his father, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, moves that are likely to be portrayed in North Korea as highlighting the importance of the Kim family as another potential succession looms.

For outside diplomats, the greatest significance of the trip is the symbolism of Messrs. Kim and Hu going to great lengths to meet each other in the aftermath of criticism both countries took following the sinking of a South Korean earlier this year, an incident that South Korea, the U.S. and others blame on a North Korean attack.

China has refused to blame North Korea publicly for the sinking, which killed 46 South Korean sailors, or to examine the results of the South Korea-led investigation.

Instead, North Korea and China have, since late May when the investigation first produced the accusation against North Korea, called for the resumption of the six-party denuclearization talks. The talks began in 2003, producing two agreements that North Korea dragged out and ultimately failed to keep. Pyongyang formally walked away from them last year.

Japan, South Korea and the U.S. have said North Korea damaged the potential for the talks with its attack on the South Korean ship.

The message to restart the talks was also given last week by a different North Korean official to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter when Mr. Carter went to Pyongyang to retrieve an American teacher who entered North Korea illegally in January. Mr. Kim skipped the opportunity to meet Mr. Carter to go to China instead.Mr. Kim doesn’t like to fly and travels by train that is easily monitored by satellite by foreign governments. His entourage is then tracked on the ground by reporters who follow the highly visible security cordons that go up along his route.

On Monday, South Korean and Japanese news agencies reported the action as Mr. Kim took his specially outfitted train from Harbin, the capital of China’s most northeastern province Heilongjiang, to a smaller city called Mudanjiang and then down to the border crossing at Tumen.

Mr. Kim called himself a “witness” to the success of China’s “reform and opening up,” Chinese television reported, but it was unclear whether that meant the North would follow that model. Last year, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in a visit to Pyongyang, proposed development projects valued at several billion dollars to North Korea, but none have gotten off the ground.

Early Monday, Chinese state media rang with praise for North Korea but also tried to draw a line in the two countries’ relationship.

The state-run Xinhua news agency published a commentary talking about Chinese men who sacrificed their lives for North Korea, during the Korean War of the 1950s and afterward. Its latest example was the tale of a Chinese man who drowned this month after rescuing three North Korean girls adrift at sea.

The man’s “sacrifice led us again to recollect the long history of friendship between the two peoples,” Xinhua wrote.

Another nationalist newspaper, Global Times, wrote an editorial that called the China-North Korea relationship both “special” and “normal.”

“The biggest negative impact the China-North Korea relationship has on China is that the U.S, Japan and South Korea all request that China be responsible for North Korea’s ‘irrational behaviors,'” the newspaper wrote. “However, China has no ability to shoulder such responsibility.”

UPDATE 3: Kim Jong il departs from Harbin and returns home.

UPDATE 2: Kim Jong-il in Changchun. According to Yonhap:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il arrived in a Chinese industrial city Friday, a day after making a pilgrimage to sites bearing footmarks of his late father, on an abrupt trip seen as related to his leadership succession plan.

A convoy of some 30 vehicles, believed to be carrying the reclusive leader, arrived at the South Lake Hotel in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun, about an hour and a half after leaving the nearby city of Jilin.

Earlier in the day, Kim’s convoy appeared to be traveling to a Jilin train station, where security was heavy, to allow the leader to board his personal armored train to Changchun. However, instead of stopping, the convoy took a highway to the capital city of Jilin province. About 10 police vehicles provided escort for the group of limousines and mini-buses.

Kim’s stay in Changchun is expected to include a tour of advanced industrial facilities.

Kim, 68, began the latest secrecy-shrouded trip a day ago, crossing into China around midnight Wednesday aboard his luxurious special train.

The trip was a surprise because it came as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was in Pyongyang for a widely speculated meeting with him. It was also Kim’s second visit to China in about three months, an unusual move for the isolated leader who rarely travels abroad.

Carter arrived in Pyongyang Wednesday to win the release of an American citizen detained in the North since January for illegal entry. Carter headed home Friday with the freed American, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said.

It was apparent that he failed to meet with Kim Jong-il.

On Thursday, Kim paid a visit to Jilin’s Yuwen Middle School, which his father and national founder, Kim Il-sung, attended for two and a half years starting in 1927. Kim also visited Beishan Park in the city of Jilin where the remains of anti-Japanese independence fighters are buried.

North Korea has lavishly lauded Kim Il-sung for his anti-Japanese activities during the 1910-45 colonial rule. The late leader, who founded North Korea in 1948, is still revered as eternal president and is subject to a strong cult of personality even after his death in 1994.

Kim’s move suggests that he visited the two sites considered sacred to his family dynasty ahead of handing power over to his youngest son, Jong-un, analysts said. Unconfirmed reports said the heir-apparent could be accompanying his father on the rare trip.

North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party is scheduled to convene a rare leadership meeting early next month in which the younger Kim could be given a key position in the run-up to formally taking over the communist dynasty.

On Thursday, Pyongyang’s state media reported that the country has started holding lower-level meetings of party delegations in the run-up to next month’s conference.

“The meetings were unanimous in saying that the WPK conference … will be a significant conference which will be a landmark of an epochal turn in strengthening the party and a great jubilee of great significance in ushering in a new surge in the revolution and construction,” the KCNA said.

Kim’s trip came as tensions still run high in the wake of the March sinking of a South Korean warship and China pushes to jump start six-nation talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear programs.

Beijing’s chief nuclear envoy has been in Seoul for talks on his trip to North Korea last week.

China is pushing for a “three-step” proposal for resuming the nuclear talks.

The proposal calls for Pyongyang and Washington first holding bilateral talks before all six parties hold an informal preparatory meeting and then an official session. The talks, which involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S., have been stalled since late 2008.

South Korea has expressed its reluctance to reopen the dialogue unless the North shows a “responsible” attitude over the sinking and proves through action that it is serious about abandoning its nuclear programs.

UPDATE 1: Here is KCNA coverage of Cater’s visit to secure the release of Gomes

ORIGINAL POST: Former President Jimmy Carter is in Pyongyang to secure the release of American Aijalon Gomes.  Past stories about his detention can be found here. President Carter last traveled to Pyongyang in 1994  and met with Kim Il-sung (the North Koreans made a propaganda video out of the trip which they sell to foreigners), and discussed terms to freeze the country’s nuclear program. Many were speculating that President Carter might meet with Kim Jong-il while in the DPRK, but Kim appears to be in China.

According to the New York Times:

The man Mr. Carter is seeking to free is Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a 30-year-old Christian from Boston who was arrested in January for crossing into North Korea and sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000. Last month, North Korea said he tried to kill himself out of “frustration with the U.S. government’s failure to free him.”

The visit by Mr. Carter, an evangelical Christian, is the second to North Korea by a former American president in a year on what the United States described as a private humanitarian missions. Last August, Bill Clinton flew there and met with the reclusive North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, to secure the release of two American journalists held for five months for illegal entry.

The Obama administration kept its distance, emphasizing that Mr. Carter not an envoy. “I’ll just say that President Carter is on a private humanitarian mission and I’m not going to comment more beyond that,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.

But as with Mr. Clinton’s visit, Mr. Carter’s has deeper diplomatic undercurrents. The North Koreans have used the captive Americans as bargaining chips, promising to release them in exchange for visits from specific high-profile Americans. North Korea can portray the meetings domestically as evidence of its international importance, while the United States has a high-level direct encounter that it cannot officially engage in.

But Mr. Carter has a long history as an independent agent, and some administration officials worried that he might undercut their policy in some way and make it harder to keep up the pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program.

It was not immediately clear who among the North Koreans would meet with Mr. Carter. The North Korean media reports said that he was greeted at the airport in Pyongyang, the capital, by Kim Kye-gwan, a senior diplomat who has been the North’s main envoy to the six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program. The talks have been stalled for more than two years, but the North recently said it was willing to return to the discussions.

Higher-level meetings would appear to be likely, since Mr. Carter’s visit comes at a fraught time for North Korea. Its economy remains deeply troubled, and its ravaged agricultural sector has been further damaged by recent flooding. A March torpedo attack that sank one of the South’s warships, killing 46 sailors, drove inter-Korean relations to their lowest point in years and added to tensions with the United States. In addition, there may be a struggle over succession within the government of Kim Jong-il, who has had serious health problems.

The case of Mr. Gomes also touches on efforts of Christians in South Korea and the United States on behalf of North Koreans. His illegal entry was made in support of Robert Park, a fellow Christian from the United States who crossed from China in December to call attention to the dismal conditions in the North’s prison camps. Mr. Park was expelled after about 40 days.

Mr. Carter has been a contentious figure among South Korean conservatives. “Carter is idealistic, not realistic when it comes to North Korea,” said Hong Kwan-hee, director of the Institute for Security Strategy in Seoul. “North Korea always has tried to use prominent Americans, preferably Democrats, as a medium to engage the United States and drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington.

In another development, the South Korean authorities on Thursday morning were looking into indications that Mr. Kim, the North Korean leader, might be visiting China, an official in the presidential office of South Korea said. News media in South Korea, including the national news agency, Yonhap, and the mass-circulation daily, Chosun, reported the same on their Web sites.

“We have signs that Kim Jong-il is visiting China,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter. “It’s unclear whether he has arrived or is still on the move.”

If true, this would be Mr. Kim’s sixth trip to China and his second in three months. North Korea and China usually do not confirm a trip by Mr. Kim until after it is over. His previous trips were often preceded by weeks of media speculation. Many journalists waited on the Chinese side of the border to wait for his train to cross. This time, there was no such activity.

According to Bloomberg:

Carter yesterday also met with Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea, KCNA said. The pair had a “cordial talk” in the Mansudae Assembly Hall, the official news agency said.

Regarding Kim Jong-il’s visit to China, I turn to the Los Angeles Times:

In a trip shrouded in mystery and speculation, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il traveled to China by train with his youngest son, according to two South Korean government officials.

An official in the South Korean Blue House confirmed late Thursday that Kim’s train had crossed the border into China around midnight Wednesday, but said the North Korean leader did not take the usual route through the city of Dandong.

We “detected indications a few days ago,” the official told reporters, asking not to be named. “Chairman Kim’s special train has been confirmed to have left Manpo for China’s Jilin around midnight Wednesday.”

Another official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said earlier that intelligence had detected movement by the reclusive Kim.

South Korea’s Yonhap news service quoted an official speculating that the trip might be associated with the anticipated handover of power in the secretive regime.

“Signs have been detected that Chairman Kim visited China early Thursday morning,” the second unnamed official told the agency. “We are still trying to grasp his exact destination and the purpose of the visit.”

This was Kim’s second trip to China since May, when he embarked on a five-day journey for a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

The Chinese government Thursday had no immediate comment on the visit. Because of security concerns, Kim’s rare trips outside North Korea to the ally nation are publicly confirmed only after they end.

The Yalu River crossing between North Korea and the Chinese city of Dandong was badly flooded last weekend, disrupting the railroad lines over which Kim normally travels in an armored, luxury train, reportedly equipped with conference rooms, bedrooms and high-tech communication facilities.

Shi Yinhong, a professor at Beijing’s Renmin University, speculated that Kim “must need China’s help in reducing tensions and ensuring a good environment for the succession of his son.”

The visit may signal that North Korea is prepared to return to six-party talks hosted by China on its nuclear program. North Korea also badly needs humanitarian assistance as a result of a series of economic blunders, as well as poor harvests and damage to cropland caused by the recent flooding.

Kim, who is 68 and in poor health after suffering a stroke in 2008, is in the process of naming his youngest son, the little-known Kim Jong Eun, 26, as his successor, a decision which should be announced at a special congress next month of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party.

“It’s likely that Kim Jong Il wants to end the debate on the succession issue in Pyongyang ahead of a meeting next month of the North Korea’s Workers’ Party,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

“There’s been plenty of succession talk between working-level and senior-level officials in Beijing and Pyongyang where they have failed to reach an agreement. Kim Jong Il now seems to be taking matters into his own hands.”

Kim Jong Eun, who was educated in Switzerland and speaks several languages, did not accompany his father during the previous trip to China in June. His presence on this visit might be something of a courtesy call to introduce the future leader to the Chinese.

“China will have no choice but to deal with Kim Jong Eun. Their regime is traditionally a family dynasty and, like it or not, if you deal with North Korea, you have to deal with their ruler,” said Shi.

Kim Jong Il assumed power in North Korea with the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994.

The rumors come amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula following the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March. The south has blamed North Korea for an unprovoked torpedo attack.

The trip also comes the day after former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in Pyongyang to secure the release of a U.S. citizen imprisoned for illegally entering the country.

Here is the original Yonhap story.

Here is more in the New York Times.

Here is more in the Los Angeles Times.

The Road less taken: DPRK railway crossings into China

Click image for larger version

The DPRK does not have many railway crossings into China. From West to East: Sinuiju, Sakju, Manpho,  and Namyang.  Historically there were additional crossings at the Unbon Dam,  Hyesan, and Saepyol, but these do not appear to be used anymore.  Namyang is in the furthest reaches of North Hamgyong Province, so if Kim is going to cross into China by rail, he has to do so from Sinuiju, Sakju, or Manpho.  Coincidentally, he has a private railway station and secure residential compound near each of these border crossings–though the closest leadership compound and train station to Manpho is in nearby Kanggye and the closest compound to the Sakju Bridge is in Changsong County.

Given that the Sinuiju crossing is most convenient, it is a bit of a mystery why he chose to cross at Manpho when Sakju/Changsong is so much closer.  Maybe the Sakju/Changsong railway crossing is not as convenient for some unknown reason?  Maybe the “smaller” Kanggye leaderhip compound is more exclusive and Kim prefered hiding this trip from as many of his cohorts as he could?  Maybe the Changsong elite compound (which is also on the water) is also flooded?  I do not know the reason, but there has to be one…

According to the Daily NK:

Kim Young Nam, North Korea’s Supreme People’s Committee Permanent Chairperson, nominally the head of state, has stated that the Workers’ Party is being returned to the forefront of state affairs, offering a further clue to the intention behind September’s Workers’ Party Delegates’ Conference.

Speaking at the “Commemorative Convention for the 50th Anniversary of the Leadership of the Military-first Revolution”, Kim told assembled officials in Pyongyang Indoor Stadium on Tuesday, “Upon the opportunity of the historical Delegates’ Conference of the Chosun Workers’ Party, we will reinforce the function of our Party, which is the headquarters of the Military-first revolution, organizer and fugleman of the victory of our people,” according to Chosun Central News Agency.

A number of experts have predicted that North Korea plans to reinforce the function and authority of the Workers’ Party through the delegates’ conference. However, this is the first time that a high North Korean official has spoken publicly on the matter.

Kim additionally emphasized, “All Party projects should be carried out in accordance with the ideology and intention of the Party, based on the line and policies of the Party and by reinforcing the leadership role of the Party in revolutionary construction.”

However, Kim was keen to stress the logical correctness of Kim Jong Il’s Military-first line. “Comrade Kim Jong Il, who has opened the prosperous era of the Workers’ Party by wisely leading military construction and revolutionary projects based on Military-first politics, by viewing military business and Party business together as the keys, has achieved great historical innovations in the construction of the strong and prosperous fatherland by advancing the Military-first achievements of the Juche idea,” he explained.

On August 25, 1960, while Kim Jong Il was studying at Kim Il Sung University, he joined his father for an on-site inspection of Ryu Kyung Su No. 105 Tank Unit. In 2005, the North Korean authorities declared that day the first day of the Military-first leadership and have organized commemorative events annually ever since. 

Read the full story here:
North Korea Speaks Out on Workers’ Party Role
Daily NK
Kim Yong Hun
8/25/2010