Posted on 07/27/2013 6:22:22 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
The Life and Times of a Kingmaker
[Kim Kyung Hee in Close-up]
By Kim Yun Sim, born in Pyongyang, entered South Korea in 2012
[2013-07-11 10:46 ]
Kim Jong Eun has one relative he can rely on: his aunt, Kim Kyung Hee. She was the only close family member permitted to advance in the regime Kim Jong Il constructed. All the rest, uncle Kim Yong Ju, stepmother Kim Song Ae and half-brother Kim Yong Pil among them, were cast off and marginalized. Thus, she is the only one left.
Outside North Korea, Kim’s reviewers describe her as a woman who once had an alcohol problem and suffers from depression. More recently, she has been seen as someone whose ill health is tipping her political power into decline. These things are all true, as it happens, which makes it hard to conceive of a scenario in which she might make a power grab. Yet she remains a political kingmaker, and her influence guides the ways in which power flows.
▲ The all-powerful nature of blood
Kim Jong Il made preparations prior to his death to smooth the way for power to transfer to his favored son. He selected a team of advisors to guide the process, in the shape of sister Kim, her husband Jang Sung Taek, current director of the General Political Department of the People’s Army Choi Ryong Hae, and former Chief of Staff Lee Young Ho (aka Ri Yong Ho, who was purged last year).
Kim, Jang and Choi all have a special relationship with Kim Jong Eun. Their political powerbases are strong and their ambitions formidable. But Kim is the one who shares the frankest conversations with Kim Jong Eun, her nephew. This is because, no matter how loyal one may be, this kind of influence is only possible for those with blood ties.
Blood relations guide a great many things in North Korea, but within the Kim clan the influence of blood is even more acute. In North Korea, positions are won and lost in a heartbeat, and familial relationships are all-powerful. As a result, Kim Jong Eun exercises relatively less caution when it comes to Kim Kyung Hee, and is able to listen to her suggestions apolitically. Others suggest policy to Kim via written proposals or oral reports, but Kim has the power to speak out and say what she wishes.
One particular reason why Kim is such a key factor in the regime is that her political life does not rest in the hands of Kim Jong Eun. She is a political figure, and acts accordingly. We know that she was closer to Kim Jong Nam than Kim Jong Eun, and that she did not see the young, stubborn Jong Eun as a leader-in-waiting. Between high-ranking cadres in North Korea, it is said that if Kim Jong Eun were to precipitate a crisis, Kim would even be prepared to dispense with him. In short, Kim has astutely aligned herself for the Kim Jong Eun era, but does not necessarily support the choices that others made.
▲ The curious case of Jang Geum Song
When Kim was at Kim Il Sung University, she pursued fellow student Jang Sung Taek. She even ignored her father, the founder of the nation itself, who was against the relationship, and as a result the two married in 1972. However, Jang Sung Taek was not very committed and affectionate, and in 1975 Kim was injured in a car crash and left unable to bear a child. Indeed, the couple’s daughter who committed suicide in France in 2006, Jang Geum Song, was not Kim’s biological daughter at all.
Kim took in and raised Geum Song, who Jang Sung Taek had fathered in an extramarital affair, as her own. However, it was Kim who later forced her to go to France to study. It is not that Geum Song refused to return to North Korea when it was demanded of her, as the original narrative upholds; in actual fact she had wanted to return, but Kim set herself against it. I heard this story directly from a cadre affiliated with the powerful domestic intelligence service, the National Security Agency.
Unlike Kim Jong Il, Jang Sung Taek was not much of a womanizer in the beginning. However, during the 1989 World Festival of Youth and Students in Pyongyang he found something of a taste for money, and began to take bribes from the president of the Changchun Joint Corporation. In the process he began to socialize with more and more women, leading Kim to feel a deepening sense of jealousy. She reported the situation to Kim Jong Il, but was dismissed: “Don’t annoy a man about other women,” Kim is said to have retorted. Here began Kim’s punishing alcoholism. Combined with her latent depression, it didn’t take many years for the situation to take on a grave seriousness.
By the beginning of the 1990s Kim had deteriorated considerably. Yet Kim Jong Il was not one to reach out to his sister. Kim appears to have concluded at this time that revenge against Jang should come through the elimination of his daughter, Jang Geum Song. Yet Jang Sung Taek was not moved by her scheme, and in the midst of her illness Kim went to visit Kim Jong Nam in China to find a source of familial empathy. It is alleged that she spent time with Mansudae Art Troupe violinist Kim Song Ho, too.
In fact, it was only when Kim Jong Il suffered a shock stroke in the summer of 2008 that Jang Sung Taek suddenly recognized the essential nature of Kim Kyung Hee to his own situation and attempted a reconciliation with her. No less shrewd than he even in her weakened mental state, Kim took the political decision to acquiesce.
However, her negative feelings for Jang, and her brother Kim Jong Il, did not dissipate. Once he had recuperated from the stroke, Kim Jong Il would often call on his sister and ask her to help out his third son, Kim Jong Eun. Kim usually agreed, continuing to make political decisions, but never resolved her lingering resentment for Kim Jong Il, who had been so ambivalent to her suffering years before.
We don't know whether Kim Jong Eun is aware of all the backroom dealing and resentment that has characterized his family in recent years. Yet if he were to become aware, and appreciated the fact that Kim Kyung Hee much prefers Kim Jong Nam, one of Jong Eun’s few true competitors, would the result be chaos within the power structure?
Over many years as the de facto No. 2 behind Kim Jong Il, Jang Sung Taek has his people everywhere in the party, military, and government. Choi Ryong Hae is using his former relationship with Kim Jong Il to develop his power and foster a faction of some of those closest to Kim Jong Eun. This road leads to only one place: a clash between the two heavyweights.
It is sometimes said that Choi is one of Jang Sung Taek’s men, but those who say this have no idea about how North Korea works. The two men were winners in a revolutionary competition to show ruthless loyalty to Kim Jong Il. As such, their relationship is extremely frosty. Yet for as long as Kim Kyung Hee is alive…
P!
As rotten and inhumane as the Kim regime is, it’s a wonder the U.S. State Department isn’t pouring billions of our tax dollars into it.
For now, we don't need their service. Chinese tighten its control on N. Korea. Now the hole has been plugged. It seems to be working. Remains to be seen how long it will last. For the first time in a couple of decades, Norks are on the defensive.
The little tyrant has his own Valerie Jarrett !!!
Sound like even family that even Dr Phil gave up on therapy on if Dr Phil couldn’t help this family
THey were to far gone LOL!
Thank you for posting this very interesting article.
So in a way, both sides of the peninsula are now ruled by women. How ironic!
You are quite correct that there are real ironies in that, considering traditional Korean cultural attitudes toward women.
And don't forget that these developments are not limited to Korea. The wife of the new head of China is a two-star general, and the Philippines has had powerful female leaders dating back several decades. Several women have also led powerful opposition movements in Asian countries.
However, this is not quite as radical of a change as might be thought. Wives of kings, emperors, regional barons, and powerful business leaders often though certainly not always have had considerable influence, though nearly always outside the public eye, and this is not a new development. What is new is that private advice is now becoming publicly acknowledged power.
It may be helpful to remember that in an Asian household, while the man may be king outside the home, women are very often queens inside the home... and men are not likely to forget that without consequences.
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