[Opinion] Hereditary Succession of North Korea

The Japanese newspaper Mainichi Daily reported on Monday that North Korean National Defense Committee Chairman Kim Jong Il’s second son Kim Jong Chol seemed the most likely candidate to succeed him. Kim Jong Chol is 26 years old, was born in 1981, and studied at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He was recently appointed as the vice chief of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) Organization and Guidance Department. The vice chief’s office is one of the key posts in North Korea, which Kim Jong Il himself occupied when he was around the same age as his son, 27, in 1969. That is one more piece of evidence backing up the Kim Jong Chol heir theory.

The Japanese news magazine Shukan Gendai reported in February 2006 that the KWP Central Committee Secretariat was ordered to name Kim Jong Cheol as the “respected vice chief of the KWP Organization and Guidance Department” in all documents and proceedings, hinting his potential appointment as heir. A domestic intelligence source said that badges with Kim Jong Chol’s portrait were given out to officials exceeding the rank of vice chief of the KWP Central Committee, vice ministers of the cabinet, and to Korean People’s Army and national organization members that are of equivalent rank. The portrait was drawn by Mansudae Changjaksa, and is his third North Korean portrait after Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

Kim Jong Chol is the son of Kim Jong Il and Japanese-born ethnic Korean dancer Ko Yong Hui who played the role of an ad-hoc lawful wife until she died in 2004. There are also observations that contend the first son Kim Jong Nam (36), whose mother was Sung Hye Rim, is not totally out of the succession candidacy picture. Kim Jong Chol is a music aficionado who buys music CDs from Japan through the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun). He made the news by being captured by a Japanese Fuji Television camera at a concert of legendary guitarist Eric Clapton in Germany in June last year.

Neither former USSR, nor any of eastern European communist states have ever seen a hereditary succession of power from father to son. North Korea was the only state that has experienced it. That is why some socialist states view Kim Il Sung as feudal rather than communist. Pro-North Korean organizations such as the Citizen’s Solidarity for South-North Korean Joint Declaration parrot the words of North Korea by saying, “Chairman Kim’s powers were not delegated hereditarily from father to son, but he was appointed and upheld by his elders.” If a third generation of heredity succession occurs, will they now contend the people have chosen a hereditary dynasty to govern them?

Editorial Writer Kwon Sun-taek, maypole@donga.com