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Kim Jong-il (born February 16, 1941) holds the highest post in North Korea. He succeeded his father, Kim Il-sung, who founded North Korea in 1948 and led it until his death in 1994, resulting in the only hereditary succession in a communist state. Kim holds the positions of Chairman of the National Defense Committee and General Secretary of the Korean Workers' Party, and was formerly styled as the "Dear Leader". His birthday is a public holiday in North Korea.
Birth and education
Like his father, Kim Jong Il is the center of a very extensive personality cult within North Korean society, in which Kim is constantly praised and honored as a hero and great statesman. As a result, many official facts regarding his early life are inconsistent with outside sources.
Kim Jong-il's official biography states that he was born at Mount Paektu in northern Korea on February 16, 1942.
South Korean sources believe he was born on February 16, 1941, and that subsequently his "official" birth year was adjusted so as to be in harmony in terms of decades with that of his father, Kim Il-sung. During his youth in the Soviet Union he was known as Yuri Irsenowich Kim. According to Western and South Korean sources, Kim Jong-il was born in a small village of Viatskoe (or Viatsk), an army camp near Khabarovsk in the Soviet Union, where his father, Kim Il-sung, was both an important figure among Korean Communist exiles and a captain and battalion commander in the Soviet 88th Brigade, which was made up of Chinese and Korean guerrillas. Kim Jong-il's mother was Kim Il-sung's first wife, Kim Jong-suk.
Kim was a young child when World War II ended. His father returned to Pyongyang in September 1945, and in late November the younger Kim returned to Korea via a Soviet ship that landed at Unggi. The family moved into a former Japanese officer's mansion in Pyongyang, with a garden and pool. The younger Kim's brother Shura Kim (also known as the first Kim Pyong-il) drowned there in 1947. In 1948 Kim Jong-il began primary school. In 1949 his mother died during labour.
Kim probably received most of his education in the People's Republic of China, where he was sent away from his father for greater safety during the Korean War. According to the official version, he graduated from Namsan School in Pyongyang, a special school for the children of communist party officials. He is later said to have attended Kim Il-sung University and to have majored in Political Economy, graduating in 1964. By the time of his graduation, his father, revered in the government's official pronouncements as "the Great Leader", had firmly consolidated control over the government. He is also said to have received English language education at the University of Malta in the early 1970s, on his infrequent holidays in Malta as guest of Maltese Prime Minister Dom Mintoff.
The elder Kim had meanwhile remarried and had another son, Kim Pyong-il. It is unclear if Jong-il was chosen over Pyong-il, or whether Pyong-il was ever seriously considered as successor by his father. Since 1988, Kim Pyong-il has served in a series of North Korean embassies in Europe and is currently the North Korean ambassador to Poland. It is suspected that Kim Pyong-il was exiled to these distant posts by Kim Il-sung in order to avoid a power struggle between his two sons.
Early political career
After graduating in 1964, Kim Jong-il began his ascension through the ranks of the ruling Korean Workers' Party, working first in the party's elite Organization Department before being named a member of the Politburo in 1968. In 1969 he was appointed deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department.
In 1973, Kim was made Party secretary of organization and propaganda, and in 1974, he was officially designated his father's successor. During the next 15 years, he accumulated further positions, among them Minister of Culture and head of party operations against South Korea.
Kim gradually made his presence felt within the Korean Workers Party from the Seventh Plenum of the Fifth Central Committee in September 1973, leading the "Three Revolution Team" campaigns. He was often referred to as the "Party Center", due to his growing influence over the daily operations of the Party.
By the time of the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980, Kim Jong-il's control of the Party operation was complete. He was given senior posts in the Politburo, the Military Commission and the party Secretariat. When he was made a member of the Seventh Supreme People's Assembly in February 1982, it had become clear to international observers that he was the heir apparent to succeed his father as the supreme leader of the DPRK.
At this time Kim assumed the title "Dear Leader" and the government began building a personality cult around him patterned after that of his father, the "Great Leader". Kim Jong-il was regularly hailed by the media as the "peerless leader" and "the great successor to the revolutionary cause". He emerged as the most powerful figure behind his father in the DPRK.
In 1991, Kim was also named supreme commander of the North Korean armed forces. Since the Army is the real foundation of power in North Korea, this was a vital step. It appears that the veteran Defense Minister, Oh Jin-wu, one of Kim Il-sung's most loyal subordinates, engineered Kim Jong-il's acceptance by the Army as the next leader of the North Korea, despite his lack of military service. The only other possible leadership candidate, Prime Minister Kim Il (no relation), was removed from his posts in 1976. In 1992, Kim Il-sung publicly stated that his son was in charge of all internal affairs in North Korea.
By the 1980s, North Korea was in deep economic crisis as the economy stagnated, aggravated by Kim Il-sung's policy of juche (self-reliance), which cut the country off from almost all external trade, even with its traditional partners, the Soviet Union and China.
South Korea accused Kim of ordering the 1983 Rangoon bombing in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), which killed 17 visiting South Korean officials, including four cabinet members, and another in 1987 which killed all 115 on board Korean Air Flight 858. No direct evidence has emerged to link Kim to the bombings. A North Korean agent confessed to planting a bomb in the case of the second.
"Highest post of the state"
Kim Il-sung died in 1994 age 82, and Kim Jong-il assumed control of the Party and state apparatus. Although the post of President was left vacant, and appears to have been abolished in deference to the memory of Kim Il-sung, Kim took the titles of General Secretary of the Party and chairman of the National Defense Commission, the real center of power in North Korea. In 1998 this position was declared to be "the highest post of the state", so Kim may be regarded as North Korean head of state from that date.
The state-controlled economy continued to stagnate throughout the 1990s, as a result of poor industrial and agricultural productivity, the loss of guaranteed markets following the fall of the Soviet Union and the introduction of a market economy in China, and the state's continued large expenditures on armaments, probably the highest relative to the size of the economy of any country in the world.
By 2000, there were frequent reports from reliable sources (such as the UN) of famine in all parts of North Korea except Pyongyang. North Korean citizens ran increasingly desperate risks to escape from the country, mainly into China.
On the domestic front, Kim has given occasional signs that he favors economic reforms similar to those carried out in China by Deng Xiaoping, and on visits to China he has expressed admiration for China's economic progress. In 2002 Kim Jong-il declared that "money should be capable of measuring the worth of all commodities" . North Korea has begun limited market experimentation.
In the time span coinciding with Kim Dae-jung's visit to the North (see the section on international affairs below), North Korea introduced a number of economic changes, including price and wage increases. Some analysts said that these measures were designed to lift production and rein in the black market. Kim has announced plans to import and develop new technologies and ambitions to develop North Korea's fledgling software industry. Kaesong Industrial Park is being developed just north of the border, with the planned participation of 250 South Korean companies, employing 100,000 North Koreans, by 2007.
North Korea does not seem to be in imminent danger of collapse, despite its international and economic difficulties. Trade with China nearly doubled between 2002 and 2004 to US$1.39 billion .
Kim's possible successor is a continuing topic of speculation. South Korean media have suggested that he is grooming his son, Kim Jong-chul. His eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, was earlier believed to be the designated heir, but he appears to have fallen out of favour after being arrested in New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport) in Narita, Japan, near Tokyo, in 2001 while traveling on a forged passport.
On April 22 2004 a large explosion occurred at the Ryongchŏn train station several hours after a train passed through the station returning Kim from his visit to China. The disaster killed upwards of 3,000 people. Initially, it was reported that the explosion was caused by an electrical fault; however, the South Korean media reports that there is evidence to suggest the incident may have been an assassination attempt. It is difficult to confirm or refute this possibility.
In November 2004, the ITAR-TASS news agency published reports that unnamed foreign diplomats in Pyongyang had observed the removal of portraits of Kim Jong-il around the country. The North Korean government has vigorously denied these reports. Radiopress, the Japanese radio monitoring agency, reported later that month that North Korean media has stopped referring to Kim by the honorific "dear leader" and that instead Korean Central Television, the Korean Central News Agency and other media have been describing him simply as "general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission, and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army". It is unclear whether the possible curtailing of Kim's personality cult indicates a struggle within the North Korean leadership or whether it is a deliberate attempt by Kim to moderate his image in the outside world.
International affairs
Kim Jong-il's government has made some efforts to improve relations with South Korea, and the election of Kim Dae-jung as South Korean president in 1997 created an opportunity for negotiations. In June 2000 the two leaders held a summit meeting, the first such meeting. But the two sides were subsequently unable to agree on any substantial (as opposed to symbolic) improvement in their relations. (For additional details on the June 2000 summit between the leaders of the two Koreas, see Sunshine Policy.)
Kim's relationship with the United States has been equally difficult. During the Clinton administration, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang in 2000, and extracted a promise from Kim that the DPRK would not pursue its nuclear weapons program if the U.S. would agree to pay for a nuclear energy facility for the DPRK. This deal never came to fruition: the DPRK continued to develop nuclear capabilities, and the U.S. never paid for the substitute facility. The administration of George W. Bush adopted a tougher stance toward the DPRK, accusing it of nuclear blackmail. Bush declared the DPRK to be part of the "Axis of Evil" along with Iran and Iraq. In 2002, the U.S. stopped shipment of fuel it was providing under the 1994 Agreed Framework, and North Korea subsequently withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Chinese government has attempted to mediate between the DPRK and the United States.
In April 2004 Kim paid an "unofficial visit" to Beijing (though news of the visit leaked out) and met with Chinese leaders who tried to persuade him that a U.S. invasion of North Korea was unlikely and that he should give up the country's nuclear weapons program.
See also: North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
Personal life
Kim is married to Kim Young-suk, although they have been estranged for some years. He has a daughter, Kim Sul-song (born 1974), by her. His eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, was born to Sung Hae-Rim, in 1971. His most recent partner (described sometimes as a mistress, sometimes as a wife) was Ko Young-hee, with whom he had another son, Kim Jong-chul, in 1981, and there is reported to be a second son, Kim Jong-un. In August 2004, the Western media reported that Ko had recently died at the age of 51 from cancer.
Kim is said to be a film fan, owning a collection of some 20,000 video tapes. However, Kim himself has said he rarely watches movies. He reportedly enjoys following National Basketball Association games. Madeleine Albright ended her summit with Kim by presenting him with a basketball signed by Michael Jordan.
Like his father, he has a profound fear of flying, and has always travelled by private train for state visits to Russia and China. He also sometimes wears lifts and platform shoes (he is 160 cm, or five foot three inches tall).
Before 1994, Kim Jong-il was frequently accused of dishonesty, drunkenness, sexual excess of various kinds and even insanity, particularly in the South Korean press. While this is not an uncommon pattern of behavior in the sons of dictators (see Vasily Stalin, Nicu Ceauşescu, Tommy Suharto and Uday and Qusay Hussein), many of these accusations seem to have been fabricated by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) of South Korea. Some of these stories however come from defectors from the DPRK, which may or may not be credible, and may be exaggerated by Western media and governments.
Notes
- www.theage.com.au November 19 2004. "North Korea's dear leader less dear"
- New York Times October 25 2000. "Albright Reports Progress in Talks with North Korea"
See also
Further reading
- Michael Breen, Kim Jong-Il: North Korea's Dear Leader, John Wiley and Sons (January, 2004), hardcover, 228 pages, ISBN 0470821310
- Bradley Martin, Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader: North Korea And The Kim Dynasty, St. Martins (October, 2004), hardcover, 868 pages, ISBN 0312322216
- Kenji Fujimoto. I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook.
External links
- Kim Jong Il: Brief History – Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang DPR Korea (1998)
- Born in the USSR – Kim Jong-Il's childhood.
- The case of Kim Jong-il's missing portraits analysis by Kosuke Takahashi (November 20, 2004)
- The many family secrets of Kim Jong Il
- Young Juche League