If Kim Jong Un Dies, His Younger Sister Is Primed to Take Over

By Donald Kirk, The Daily Beast

23 April 20

She’s been the rising political star in a dynasty where other would-be heirs to the Kim dynasty wound up dead.

he Winter Olympics of 2018 were Kim Yo Jong's international coming out party. The world’s press gushed about the younger sister of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The debutante—slender, smiling, gracious—seemed to be so very different from her porcine brother. But now that his health is in question, and amid conflicting reports that he could be at death’s door, his little sister may well be first in line to carry on the family dynasty.

Sister and brother have been close for years. She has advised on key events in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, encouraging construction of modern apartments, ski slopes, even an amusement park, but it was during those Olympics that she shone as a major figure before the world. It was then, at a luncheon meeting in the Blue House, the center of power in South Korea, that she gracefully handed the South’s President Moon Jae-in a handwritten note from her brother suggesting they get together for a summit.

As a Blue House spokesman described the encounter, Kim Yo Jong embellished the written verbiage with polite words of her own. Big brother hoped they could get together sooner rather than later, at the “earliest convenience,” she said. Moon, who had been looking for reconciliation with the North, was thrilled. “Let’s create the environment for that to happen,” was his all-too-eager response.

Sister and brother have been close for years. She has advised on key events in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, encouraging construction of modern apartments, ski slopes, even an amusement park, but it was during those Olympics that she shone as a major figure before the world. It was then, at a luncheon meeting in the Blue House, the center of power in South Korea, that she gracefully handed the South’s President Moon Jae-in a handwritten note from her brother suggesting they get together for a summit.

As a Blue House spokesman described the encounter, Kim Yo Jong embellished the written verbiage with polite words of her own. Big brother hoped they could get together sooner rather than later, at the “earliest convenience,” she said. Moon, who had been looking for reconciliation with the North, was thrilled. “Let’s create the environment for that to happen,” was his all-too-eager response.

Ah, those were the days. Now, after all those summits between Moon and Kim—and between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim—the atmosphere has cooled again while both Koreas struggle through the coronavirus pandemic that may also have caught Kim in its feverish grip. More than ever, Yo Jong is looking like Jong Un’s most obvious heir apparent, and while she may not be overly qualified to rule, she has this: she survived her brother’s bloody family purges. 

Kim Yo Jong is  young—she’s 31— but she’s older than her brother was when he inherited absolute power from their father in December 2011, just shy of his 28th birthday. And Yo Jong is a familiar face to North Koreans. Big brother has been promoting her as a visible number two for years now. If Jong Un succumbs to the kind of cardiovascular issues that are inevitable for one who’s 5’7”, tips the scales at 300 pounds according to South Korean intelligence, is a chain smoker, drinks heavily, and works hard, few other contenders have his little sister’s high profile.

Previous contenders for the throne, or would-be powers behind it, have not fared well. Jang Song Thaek, his father’s sister’s husband, had an inside track on power during the later days of Kim Jong Il’s rule. After Jong Il died, Jang was fully expected to advise young Jong Un on the ways and wiles of governance. But less than two years after Kim Jong Un took power, he had Uncle Jang charged with corruption and power-grabbing, beaten, dragged before a judge, and executed. Kim also had his older half brother, who’d been living a playboyish life in Macao,  snuffed with VX nerve agent in 2017.

Bruce Bennett, who follows Korea for the Rand Corporation, believes Kim may want his sister to keep the seat of power warm for when his son is ready to take charge. But the boy was born in 2010, date uncertain, so Kim Yo Jong’s regency would be pretty long. Kim may believe his sister is a safer bet as successor-in-waiting because in his view she “would not be able to take over the government herself,” says Bennett, unlike the highly qualified, deceased, Jang Song Thaek. 

Kim Yo Jong was named an alternate member of the politburo at her brother’s last publicized appearance on April 12.  She rose to that position after having been authorized to make public statements in her own name criticizing South Korea for bowing to Washington’s wishes about demands for an end to the North’s nuclear and missile program.

As quoted in the North Korean state media, this lissome young woman could be a tough cookie—not exactly the charmer she had appeared when she and Moon met during the Olympics. 

When South Korea leveled official criticism at the North’s recent missile tests, Yo Jong fired back, "The South side is …  fond of joint military exercises and it is preoccupied with all the disgusting acts like purchasing ultra-modern military hardware.”  She did not mention South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in by name but called the Blue House, the center of presidential power, “a mere child”—like “a  child dreading fire” whose behavior was “so perfectly foolish.”

"They meant they need to get militarily prepared but we should be discouraged from military exercises,” she declared in a flight of verbiage worthy of the North’s best rhetoricians. “Such a gangster-like assertion can never be expected from those with normal way of thinking."

It would have been impossible for Kim Yo Jong to utter such caustic words had Kim not wanted to push her into the spotlight and move her up the hierarchy. Among her official positions Kim Yo Jong has served as vice director of the propaganda and agitation department of the Workers’ Party and was elected last year to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the North’s rubber stamp parliament.

All that background may not qualify her in a male-dominated society, but she does carry on the sacrosanct “Paektu line.” That’s the blood relationship to her grandfather,  Kim Il Sung, who was installed by the Soviet Union as North Korea’s first leader after World War II and ruled for nearly 50 years, and to her father, Kim Jong Il, mythologized by North Korea as born in a cabin on sacred Mount Paektu, the Korean peninsula’s highest peak and a former hideout for guerrillas battling Japanese colonial rule.

“The logical successor will be Kim Yo Jong,” says Evans Revere, a long-time diplomat dealing with North Korea at the U.S. embassy in Seoul and the State Department.  “She is a member of the Kim family.  Clearly, she is being groomed for greater responsibilities, as evidenced by her recent promotions, her elevated public profile, and her self-confident, almost cocky, comments.”

Bruce Klingner, northeast Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, observes “the usual assessment would be that a ‘Confucian Korean culture’ would never choose a woman” but “Kim Yo Jong has gained prominence.” Kim Jong Un “may have designated her since she is likely the only person he trusts. If she were chosen, the regime would emphasize the continuity of the Paektu bloodline.”

Others, however, doubt the elite surrounding Kim would be in a mood to accept her except, perhaps, as a figurehead.

“I doubt she could consolidate power like her brother and father did,” says Dan Pinkston, long-time North Korea analyst, now a professor at Troy University here. “Maybe she could be part of collective leadership, but I don't think it would be sustainable.”

If Kim “is seriously sick or dies tomorrow,” says Choi Jin-wook, a North Korea expert and former director at the Korea Institute of National Unification,  “leadership would go almost automatically to Choi Young Hae, deputy chairman of the state council.” Kim Yo Jong may be “a legitimate successor and Kim Il Sung’s granddaughter, but she is not quite ready for the supreme power.” 

More likely, Choi predicts, “there will be a power vacuum and some instability.” It’s exactly that possibility, however, that suggests that Kim Yo Jong may be the one to rise above quarreling factions in the armed forces and the party.

Bruce Bechtol, author of numerous books and papers on North Korea’s leadership, puts it this way: “Her power base will be even weaker than KJU when he first started. Plus, there has been no preparation for this move. That said, if he dies, there may be no other alternative.” Yes, Kim has an older brother, Kim Jong Chul, 38, born to the same mother, but he’s “known to be gay and has no support in the party or the army.”

Then too, says Bruce Bennett, “I have also heard that the senior North Korean elites are done with the Kim family. “ Disillusioned by Kim Jong Un’s failure to accomplish “many things he has attempted, like sanctions relief,” says Bennett, they may be happy to let the remaining Kims  “die of COVID-19 as the cover story to allow someone else to take leadership in North Korea.” 

Whatever happens, there’s no doubt that Kim Jong Un’s lifestyle is catching up with him. If he’s not in “grave danger,” as one report put it, he may still be seriously ill. At 36, “Kim is grossly overweight and likely suffers from a number of serious chronic health issues, including cardiovascular problems,” says retired U.S. diplomat David Straub. “These problems are exacerbated by the enormous stress he is constantly under as the leader of a rogue state and under constant threat from within his own state as well.” 

All of which means that little sister, her big brother’s understudy, may be rehearsing for center stage. “It's hard to imagine a woman being the real leader of a regime as macho as North Korea's,” says Straub, “but it's conceivable that top male power players there might, in a pinch, agree on installing her as the symbolic leader."

If some of her public remarks are any clue, however, she may reject the symbolism and prove to be every bit as ruthless as her megalomaniacal brother.

Some Progressives Are in Denial About Trump's Fascist Momentum

By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News

23 April 20

wo years after Donald Trump won the presidency, the author of “How Fascism Works” assessed him in a video. “It might seem like an exaggeration to call Trump a fascist,” Yale professor Jason Stanley said. “I mean, he’s not calling for a genocide or imprisoning his own people without due process. But . . . if you use history and philosophy as a guide, it’s easy to see parallels between Trump’s words and those of the most reviled fascists in history. That scares me, and it should scare you too.”

Drawing on his decade of studying fascist propaganda, Stanley concluded: “If you’re not worried about encroaching fascism in America, before long it will start to feel normal. And when that happens, we’re all in trouble.”

We’re all in trouble.

Trumpism has started to feel normal. Trump stands a good chance of winning re-election in November. And his odds have improved because the Democratic Party is expected to nominate an abysmal candidate.

For ample good reasons, many progressives disdain Joe Biden. He has a long record as a corporate servant, ally of racial injustice and avid supporter of the military-industrial complex. Now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, he scarcely seems able to articulate anything worthwhile.

In short, as the two contenders with a chance to win the presidential race, Biden and Trump are offering a choice between neo-liberalism and neo-fascism.

To hear a small but significant portion of the U.S. left tell it these days, that’s not a meaningful choice. Some say preventing the re-election of Trump isn’t important. That amounts to ignoring political reality, an evasion with potentially vast consequences.

“We should make no mistake,” longtime progressive journalist Juan González said days ago, “that this country is edging closer and closer to neo-fascist authoritarianism.”

That reality doesn’t stop some on the left from evading it -- preferring to conflate the two major parties to a degree akin to denial. 

Earlier this month, I listened to a discussion that included an eminent left author who flatly declared that on “all major issues” there is “no real difference between the Democratic and Republican parties.” A preposterous claim.

Soon afterward, I read an article by an editor at a high-quality left magazine that displayed odd complacency about whether or not Trump gets a second term: “The most likely outcome if he wins re-election is not a crude dictatorship, but further erosion of civil liberties within the existing political framework. Opposition parties and media will still be able to function. The people who suffer the worst forms of oppression under Trump will be the immigrants and ethnic minorities whose rights are routinely violated under Republican and Democratic presidencies alike.”

Really? It won’t matter to “immigrants and ethnic minorities” whether Trump is president for another four years?

When there’s a genuine threat of sliding into fascism, the left has an overarching responsibility to fight against the momentum of the extreme right. Sometimes that requires a broad coalition.

The left in France was correct when, in 2017, it united with a corporate centrist to defeat neo-fascist National Front candidate Marine Le Pen in the runoff election for president. In 2020, for the United States, the dangers are no less grave.

It’s true that leading “moderate” Democrats and even some self-described “progressives” have routinely functioned as enablers for the rightward tilt of national politics -- a bad dynamic that has continued on Capitol Hill in the midst of the pandemic under leadership from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Not wanting to seem obstructionist often ends up being helpful to right-wing agendas.

But here’s a key point: People who deny or downplay the real threat of neo-fascism consolidating itself via Trump’s re-election are, in effect, serving as enablers for the forces of the virulent extreme right that already controls so much of the U.S. government.

“It’s important to remember that right now, the issue of greatest urgency is to get rid of the malignancy in the White House,” Noam Chomsky said in an interview last week. “If we don’t do that, everything else pales into insignificance. To keep this for another four years means racing to the abyss on global warming, possibly reaching irreversible tipping points, sharply increasing the threat of nuclear war, stuffing the judiciary with young, ultra-right, mostly unqualified lawyers who will guarantee that anything to the left of Attila the Hun can’t survive for a generation, and on and on. This is top priority.”

In that video interview with The Intercept, Chomsky added: “There’s a thing called arithmetic. You can debate a lot of things, but not arithmetic. Failure to vote for Biden in this election in a swing state amounts to voting for Trump. Takes one vote away from the opposition, same as adding one vote to Trump. So, if you decide you want to vote for the destruction of organized human life on Earth. . . then do it openly. . . . But that’s the meaning of ‘Never Biden.’”

In “How Fascism Works,” Professor Stanley addressed “fascist politics” -- and repeatedly used that term when describing the Trump-led Republican Party.

For those in the USA who recoil at applying such a phrase to today, preferring to call it hyperbole, Stanley’s book sheds clear light on an insidious process that normalizes and obscures: “Normalization of fascist ideology, by definition, would make charges of ‘fascism’ seem like an overreaction, even in societies whose norms are transforming along these worrisome lines. Normalization means precisely that encroaching ideologically extreme conditions are not recognized as such because they have come to seem normal. The charge of fascism will always seem extreme; normalization means that the goalposts for the legitimate use of ‘extreme’ terminology continually move.”

Meanwhile, Stanley wrote, “Fascist politics exchanges reality for the pronouncements of a single individual, or perhaps a political party. Regular and repeated obvious lying is part of the process by which fascist politics destroys the information space. A fascist leader can replace truth with power, ultimately lying without consequence. By replacing the world with a person, fascist politics makes us unable to assess arguments by a common standard. The fascist politician possesses specific techniques to destroy information spaces and break down reality.”

Sound familiar?

Norman Solomon is co-founder and national director of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Solomon is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.