Ichiro Ue / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Writer
Moves have been increasingly conspicuous in North Korea that are seen aimed at handing the top post of the communist regime over to Kim Jong Un, the 26-year-old third son of leader Kim Jong Il, 67, for a third-generation dynastic transfer of power in Pyongyang.
Messages concerning the ongoing process of hereditary power transfer in North Korea have spread in recent months by word of mouth.
However, indications are that a drive being staged to expand the country's production--reportedly under the instruction of Kim Jong Un--is bound to fail under the current international sanctions against the North.
Pyongyang's main daily Rodong Sinmun (newspaper for the workers), in its June 22 editorial, made reference to what is considered a prelude to the power transfer.
The editorial, no official English translation of which was immediately available, said emphatically that North Korea was "at the threshold of becoming a great prosperous and powerful socialist nation" and was now "beaming with a gush of joy."
The editorial went on to compare the nation's military and mental power of its people as identical to "the time of the great power transfer in the 1970s (from then President Kim Il Sung to his son Kim Jong Il in the capacity of general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea).
Although the editorial came up short of identifying by name the annointed successor to Kim Jong Il, it seemed to strongly imply that North Korea was in the midst of effecting the father-to-son succession process.
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Hymn for new leader
Commenting on which of Kim's three sons is to succeed him as ruler of North Korea, a senior official of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), who traveled to North Korea in May and June, said, "I heard here and there [in North Korea] that the successor will be the general secretary's youngest son, Kim Jong Un."
It has been widely rumored that what is being called the "150-day offensive"--the country's national campaign to expand production that started in late April--as well as its April 5 long-range missile launch and May 25 second nuclear test, took place under the instruction of Kim Jong Un, the Chongryon official said.
He also said a song penned "in admiration of the country's new leader" has been taught widely in primary schools, the military and all lower echelons of the Workers' Party.
The song is titled "Footsteps," he said.
Its third verse goes:
Tap! tap! tap! tap!
We hear the footsteps
Of our Commander Kim,
He is stepping forward by taking over
The glorious achievements
Of February
Tap! tap! tap!
The footsteps reverberate
More and more loftily
Ushering in a brilliant future
Tap! tap! tap!
An informed source who heard the song while in North Korea said, "The song made me imagine the strength of a new leader who has begun to show himself."
"February" in the verse is a metonym for General Secretary Kim, who was born in February.
The words "taking over" should naturally be interpreted as indicating a successor to Kim Jong Il.
It seems that a person unable to understand such a reference would be unable to live in North Korea.
It was in 1974, when Kim Jong Il was 31, that he was chosen by a secret session of the party's Central Committee to be eventual successor to his father, President Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994.
It was not until 1980 that Kim Jong Il was officially approved as general secretary by a party convention.
At present, there have been no reports of any official decision to have Kim Jong Un, at the tender age of 26, take over the leadership of North Korea.
In light of the example of the 1970s power transfer, it seems things probably will evolve under the scenario of first spreading a "successor image" while withholding his name as various "myths" are developed about the successor.
Given the North Korean power transfer drama already is under way, amid rumors of anxieties about the general secretary's health, many analysts outside North Korea have taken the view that the succession process likely will be executed more swiftly than in the 1970s.
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Fighting to end the war
As another senior Chongryon official put it, "Kim Il Sung, the first leader of North Korea, fought guerrilla warfare against Japan before founding the country, and also fought to end the Korean War."
"The second-generation leader, Kim Jong Il, has successfully led the country in a diplomatic battle with the United States on an equal footing, on the strength of Pyongyang's nuclear deterrence," he said.
"The task the third-generation leader must deal with is to take over his father's diplomatic achievements and realize the goal of enabling the North Korean people to be provided with the fruit of the country's economic growth," the Chosensoren official said.
The "150-day offensive" apparently is designed to demonstrate a theoretical model of North Korea's envisaged economic development by intensely mobilizing the country's meager energy and other resources.
Even if there might be a kind of temporary "success" in exceeding output quotas, it is impossible for such "magic" to last long.
If North Korea remains dirt-poor even after the power transfer, whether it occurs immediately or sometime later, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the North Korean people will be unhappy over the legitimacy of the father-to-son succession.
As long as North Korea faces sanctions from the international community in response to the hard-line measures Pyongyang has taken in rapid succession, the goal of realizing any form of national development is bound to turn out to be a pie-in-the-sky proposition.
Countries in the region, including Japan, for their part, are now in a crucial phase that will decide whether they can join hands to make Pyongyang see this bleak prospect for the North Korean economy, which is just a matter of course as long as the country remains unchanged.
(Jun. 29, 2009)
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