There is simply no end to the succession of bizarre occurrences that characterize the political culture in North Korea. In a country that has made secrecy an integral part of official policy, those occurrences, when they become public, are really the only ‘tea leaves’ offered us to enable some measure of ‘reading’ of the behaviour of what, surely, is the world’s most eccentric political system.
Prior to the past two weeks, Kim Jong Un, the Kim dynasty’s latest offering as ruler, had brought the world the test firing of a nuclear weapon and a subsequent boisterous outburst of sabre-rattling, targeting the Korean peninsula and by implication the United States, as a means of reminding the rest of the international community of the existence of what, otherwise, has been a largely ignored country.
That passed though not without a measure of international jitteriness. One must bear in mind that North Korea’s chosen forms of political behaviour render conventional diplomacy an inadequate tool with which to engage Pyongyang. Even Beijing, Pyongyang’s most influential ally, often appears blissfully unaware of events in that country. Neighbouring South Korea’s intelligence has not always been reliable and the offerings of the United States’ spy agencies are frequently wide of the mark.
If account is taken of the fact that North Korea now has a nuclear capability, its persistence in an isolationist posture attended by episodes of jingoistic political behaviour is decidedly unsettling given how little the rest of the international community appears to know about its day-to-day internal politics.
These past two weeks Pyongyang offered us an episode of political theatre that was as Kafkaesque as anything that we have witnessed from the regime previously. Within a matter of days we learnt of the accusation, arrest, trial, conviction and execution of four-star General Jang Sung-taek, Kim Jong Un’s uncle -in-law and the de facto number two, following charges ranging from economic sabotage to seeking to depose Kim.
While we can only speculate as to the reason why Pyongyang choose to release pictures of a man who, for years, had been one of the regime’s most powerful political figures being dragged off by guards after his ‘trial,’ the public humiliation of Jang would have had the effect of signalling to the world that Kim Jong Un’s internship was over. That, arguably, is the point that Pyongyang wished to make, so that whatever the truth of the events that led to Jang’s demise, the circumstance provided means through which to send a message to the world about the security of the Kim dynasty.
Further, the events of the past two weeks could be a precursor to more unsavory developments in Pyongyang. Up until now it appears that the late Jang’s wife, Kim Kyong-hui ‒ the daughter of North Korea’s ‘Great Leader’ Kim Il Sung – will not share her husband’s fate since Kim Jong Un, shortly thereafter, appointed his widowed aunt as Head of a Funeral Commission to oversee the burial of another high-ranking party official who died of natural causes. Membership of funeral commissions, it appears, is an indication of preferment in North Korea.
The other issue that cannot be overlooked is the likelihood of still further ‘trials’ and executions of other officials who, presumably, had gotten close to Jang during his protracted tenure as one of the most influential figures across the entire Kim dynasty. Once Kim opts to remove other party and military functionaries deemed to have been close to Jang, the bloodshed might be considerable.
From all that we had learnt about Jang much of his influence derived from his role – perhaps in the context of being a family member – of mentoring the young Kim when he became ruler in 2011 at the age of 28. The manner of his demise, therefore, is indicative of the unchanging nature of an unpalatable political culture that is unmindful of loyalties, familial or otherwise. After all, Kim Jong Un, at least as far as we can tell, appeared to have little difficulty in doing away with a man who, since his own childhood, he would have known both as a family member and a high-ranking public official and, after his (Kim’s) accession to power, a trusted advisor. That speaks volumes about Kim’s own orientation. Whatever Jang’s transgressions might have been against the Kim dynasty in the inappropriately named Democratic People’s Republic of Korea this latest act appears an aberration in terms of the last twenty years or so, even by that country’s brutal standards.
