Japan is following diplomatic protocol and hoping for the best while preparing for the worst, writes DAVID MCNEILL
IN JAPAN, where every twitch of North Korea’s scowling public face is carefully observed, the reaction to the death of Kim Jong-il is instructive.
Tokyo sent a rare, apparently sincere notice of condolence for the passing of a man most Japanese reviled – then called an emergency cabinet meeting to prepare for what were euphemistically called “unexpected developments”.
Top spokesman Osamu Fujimura said Japan hoped that Kim’s death “would not bring any adverse impact on the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula”.
Like the rest of the world, Japan is following diplomatic protocol and hoping for the best – while preparing for the worst. One nightmare scenario, rehearsed many times in the popular media, is the sudden collapse of the North Korean regime and its already creaking public distribution system, followed by an exodus of millions of its starving citizens into China and beyond.
How would China, Japan and South Korea deal with those refugees, including what is likely to be a large contingent of military personnel from the North’s million-strong army? Nobody knows.
Another oft-foretold outcome of Kim’s death is a stunt by the North’s military that could start war with South Korean and US forces on hair-trigger alert to the south. Some analysts say it was precisely the demand for a show of force by the presumed heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, that almost provoked all-out conflict last year, when the North’s military shelled the southern island of Yeonpyeong, killing four.
The only precedent for these horrific scenarios is the death of Kim Jong-il’s father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994, which seemed to paralyse the North’s leadership until Kim junior emerged clearly holding the reins four years later. In the intervening years came the famine that killed anywhere from one million to 2.5 million people, depending on whom you believe.
Kim Jong-il led calamitously ever since, worsening the North’s isolation and already chronic poverty and malnutrition, extending his father’s system of prisons, forced labour camps and public executions, and bringing his country to the brink of conflict with the West.
His citizens owe him no loyalty, and we would surely see this if it wasn’t for the intense personality cult created by his family.
Kim’s son Jong-un inherits this disastrous legacy, so passing him off in a third generational transfer of power will not be easy.
But until now, ordinary North Koreans have had very little say in who rules them. And for a whole generation of military and political figures who rose with his father, Jong-un is what long-time Pyongyang-watcher Bruce Cummings calls a “key symbol of continuity and power”.
Indeed, the main purpose of last year’s rare party conference, which anointed Jong-un as heir apparent, was to provide him with guides on the road to power, all of whom will ride along on his coat-tails.
The supporters apparently include Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s powerful brother-in-law.
“Their guidance and control will most likely enable a second reasonably stable political transition,” says Cummings.
Perhaps the most optimistic outcome of the Dear Leader’s death, then, if not for the North’s citizens than at least for its neighbours, is that his son is mentored to the top by these power brokers and guides the country into a soft landing and peaceful “decompression of totalitarianism”, says Cummings.
The Swiss-educated Jong-un may ensure a China-like transition to managed capitalism, opening up his nuclear-armed nation to investment and engagement with the West, and eventual denuclearisation.
A less optimistic scenario, however, is that the young inexperienced leader falls under the influence of his conservative handlers and back on his grandfather’s concept of Juche, or self-reliance and isolation.
Or that he simply fails to convince the country’s military and political elite that he has what it takes to lead at all, sparking a power struggle, in which case everything is up for grabs.
In the background of course are the North’s long-suffering people, who have been mostly passive onlookers in the slow emasculation of their country. Few analysts feel confident predicting that they will shrug off the cult of Kim with his death and become active historical agents. But after that happened in the Arab world this year, anything is possible – as no doubt the North’s leadership is aware.