Korea Del Norte

North Korea under Kim Chong-il

North Korea under Kim Chong-il
Power, Politics, and Prospects for Change
KEN E. GAUSE

Praeger Security International

Copyright 2011 by Ken E. Gause All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gause, Ken E. North Korea under Kim Chong-il : power, politics, and prospects for change / Ken E. Gause. p. cm. — (Praeger security international) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-38175-1 (hardcopy : alk.paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-38176-8 (ebook) 1. Korea (North)—Politics and government—1994– 2. Kim, Chong-il, 1942– I. Title. DS935.774.G38 2011 951.9305'1—dc23 2011017849 ISBN: 978-0-313-38175-1 EISBN: 978-0-313-38176-8 15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5

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Contents

Preface I. 1 2 3 4 5 Kim Chong-il as Leader Establishing the Kim Chong-il System Crisis Management: Experimenting with Reform Kim Family Politics Rollback of Reforms New Faces Emerge as North Korea Takes a Different Tack at Reformvii 1 5 27 55 77 87 113 115 169 177 187 189 231

II. Passing the Torch to a Third Generation 6 7 Third Hereditary Succession Challenges for the Future

Appendix A: Close Aide Politics Appendix B: Decision Making at the Center of the Hub and Spoke Notes Index

Preface

Everybody is trying to sort of read the tea leaves [on North Korea] as to what is happening and what is likely to occur,and there is a lot of guessing going on. . . . But there is also an increasing amount of pressure because if there is a succession, even if it’s a peaceful succession, that creates more uncertainty and it may also encourage behaviors that are even more provocative as a way to consolidate power within the society. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, in Seoul, February 19, 2009 I think we’ve saidmany times that the leadership and how decisions are made in North Korea is an opaque process. . . . Who’s actually taking decisions is very opaque as well. We don’t have any direct contact on the ground and are not able to well judge what we hear coming out of North Korea. Gordon Duguid, State Department Spokesman, February 19, 2009

One of the most vexing foreign policy problems facing theinternational community today is the case of North Korea. Since the late 1980s, successive leaders of the five Northeast Asian powers have confronted the challenge to little effect. Despite a variety of foreign policy strategies ranging from threats of military force to engagement to benign neglect to engagement within the context of the Six Party Talks, neither the United States, nor South Korea, norChina has succeeded in removing the

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Preface

problems North Korea poses for the international community. The U.S. intelligence community summarizes the North Korea problem in the following way:
• North Korea has a million man army and missile arsenals that threaten South Korean and U.S. forces along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). • North Korea has a nuclear weapons program and ispursuing fissile material through two processes, plutonium separation and uranium enrichment. • North Korea probably has active biological and chemical weapons programs and probably chemical and possibly biological weapons ready for use. • North Korea has an aggressive ballistic missile program and is developing delivery systems capable of one day hitting the continental United States. • North Korea...