The Chronicle

Kevin Miller
Staff Writer

Though a transition in the North Korean leadership seems imminent, this should not necessarily be viewed as a negative development. Current leader Kim Jong-il, who is severely ailing after a purported 2008 stroke, has rarely been seen in public since and has had his propaganda apparatus issue decrees on the imminence of a possible successor taking over, that successor being the 26-year-old son of the reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un.

The most recent evidence of Jong-un’s succession has been the much covered media harbinger: a visit by Jong-il and Jong-un to China while former American President Jimmy Carter traveled to North Korea and attempted to secure the release of an American hostage in North Korea.

The most obvious explanation that I can think of as to why the “Dear Leader” didn’t remain in North Korea, whereby he could usher in new found relations for his successor, is that by shirking Carter, successor Jong-un would have more latitude in his official foreign policy dealings with the outside world.

 The trip served a purpose of many fold, since it allowed for the North’s leadership to cultivate an understanding between them and the Chinese leadership that will serve them well, if possible reunification talks go forward for the peninsula as the incoming Jong-un sees fit. Though the “Dear Leader’s” son is young, his popularity in North and South Korea should not go unobserved. He is known for his intellect rather than his military exploits, and his proximity in age to the nascent intelligentsia in South Korea makes him a popular figure. In South Korea, the aging ruling class, who still harbor resentment toward the North over the Korean War, will still control the reins of power at the time of the North’s plenary session, which is rumored to be the official handing over of power to the younger Kim.

 However, this doesn’t mean that unification talks won’t take place while they’re still in power. It does mean it is unlikely there will be complete unification between the two countries until the South hands over the reins of power to the younger ruling class.

 The unpredictability of the North’s leadership will not be lessened by this change in leadership either. Some are certain that from Thanksgiving of 2006, when the North first detonated a nuclear device, to the present, that there has been a high stakes contest between certain elements within the North’s leadership to rule the country-- a contest which Jong-un by his elevation is assumed to have won. It also doesn’t help that this contest of wills may have also coincided with extremely provocative acts by the North such as the testing of a new longer range missile, the Taepodong-3, and the detonation of nuclear devices in underground laboratories.

It’s also worth noting that these provocative measures have ebbed and flowed according to the “Dear Leader’s” sporadic health scares. A destabilized Korean peninsula is in no one’s self-interest, and if six-way party talks are to resume, an emboldened, yet conciliatory, Jong-un may be the correct way to go.

The Koreans are currently suffering through one of the worst food shortages in their history. This should be taken as an opportunity of rapprochement with the North, and as a test of the revolutionary ideals and East Wind versus Western Bloc attitudes of the newly-installed leadership. By being gracious and forthcoming with food aid for the North, the U.S. ingratiates itself with the leadership. More importantly, the arrival of new stores of food, in time for the jubilee celebration of his ascendancy, will no doubt be a lesson to the younger Jong-un that if he hopes to do more than survive within the stringent international world order, he should take care to reciprocate quid pro quo with the U.S.

 If we take one thing away from the North Korean leadership’s recent harbinger in China, it should be that the North sees itself on par with the Chinese and hopes to project that stance throughout the world. We can facilitate that point of view only if they’re willing to compromise in the agreed nuclear framework. A policy that is heavy on carrots and light on sticks will serve us well in the opening salvos of the nascent government’s beginnings. A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.  

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