But since his father's death and his youngest brother's
elevation to supreme leader status, China has taken a very protective stance
towards Kim Jong-nam, according to Japanese jouranlist Yoji
Gomi, who has written a book about the exiled Kim, a man he calls a
friend. Kim Jong-nam has been reported
as saying that his youngest brother Kim
Jong-un is nothing more than a figurehead who is unready for the leadership
position he has been thrust into. Kim
Jong-nam was also critical of the lavish lifestyle of the Kims and of their
“military first” policy – where members of the military get dibs on North
Korea's scarce resources, rather than the Communist Party's supposed policy of
“people first”. As for the Chinese
monitoring, Gomi suggests that Kim Jong-nam could be a “political card” for
China to play if the Kim regime falls apart.
This is an interesting theory for
a few reasons. According to Korean
tradition, power should have gone to the eldest son, Kim Jong-nam; so skipping
him in favor of the youngest son is in many ways a jarring move. Then there's the fact many North Koreans didn't even know of the existence of Kim
Jong-un until last year, when he was suddenly introduced as the designated
successor. By contrast, Kim Jong-il
spent almost two decades by the side of his father, the founder of the North Korean
state, Kim Sung-il, a move that
established a clear line of succession.
It is unknown how much support then Kim Jong-un actually has among the
military or the ruling cadres of the Korean Worker's Party (a.k.a. the
Communists), so the idea that he could be ousted as the result of an internal
power struggle isn't that far-fetched.
If North Korea were to fall apart,
once the period of immediate chaos subsided, it could lead to a reunification
of the two Koreas. This is something
China has always been wary about, and a major reason why they have but up with
the craziness of the Kim regime for all of these years – China doesn't want to
have Korea unified under the South, which would put an economically-strong,
Western-looking country flush up against their border. So, with this in mind, protecting Kim
Jong-nam makes a certain amount of sense as a “political card” to use Gomi’s term. If North Korea were to fall apart, China
could offer Kim Jong-nam up as a “rightful” successor based on his first son
credentials and his statements in support of the North Korean people against
the excesses of the Kim regime and over-reliance on the North Korean
military. He could be put forward as
someone who could “restore” the idea of the People's Republic of North Korea championed
by the still-revered Kim Sung-il, and could thus keep South Korea from extending
their influence up to the Chinese border.
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