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The prolonged public absence of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has led to rumors of ill health and concerns about how he might influence the future of what one analyst calls the “Achilles’ heel” of Northeast Asia, a reference to belligerence and unpredictable nature of the north.
But there is a basic unanswered question, debated by the media and government intelligence services alike: Are the rumors true?
Kim’s exact state of health is important because it could determine the stability of the dynastic government in Pyongyang and the safety of nuclear weapons that the nation has repeatedly threatened to use on its neighbors and the United States.
It is a problem that external nations have faced for decades. Gathering information about the world’s most secret, suspicious, and difficult-to-read country is incredibly difficult. And there’s probably nothing North Korea keeps more closely than Kim’s health information, which is probably only shared among a small slice of the elite, including her powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong.
At the heart of the intelligence deficiencies over North Korea is its extremely closed nature. But there is also a lot of blame in South Korea for the efforts made there.
Supporters of South Korea’s current liberal government, which remains eager for the inter-Korean compromise, lament the previous decade of conservative rule there, when exchanges between diplomats, government and business leaders, aid groups and others were halted under line policies. lasts toward North Korea’s nuclear policy. ambitions This, they say, deprives spies of high-quality information sources.
Conservatives, on the other hand, blame the liberals for allegedly reducing espionage operations while pursuing an inter-Korean rapprochement. Such networks, they say, have been difficult to rebuild.
The South Korean government has repeatedly dismissed unconfirmed media reports that Kim is in a fragile state of health after cardiac surgery, saying she has detected no unusual activity in North Korea or any emergency preparedness. by its ruling Workers’ Party, military and cabinet. Without specifying its sources of information, the South Korean presidential office said it believes Kim is handling state affairs normally at an unspecified site outside the capital, Pyongyang.
Unfounded as the fears are, some experts say South Korea, as well as its regional neighbors and its ally Washington, must begin preparing for the high-level instability that could arise if Kim is sidelined by health problems or even dies. . That could include the North Korean refugees flooding South Korea or China, or the uncompromising military who drop nuclear weapons.
While those are the worst-case scenarios, planning them is crucial because no one knows for sure what’s going on inside North Korea, said Nam Sung-wook, a North Korean expert at Seoul University of Korea who called the situation the “Achilles heel of international politics”. in Northeast Asia. “
“Rather than saying it’s okay … our government should prepare for various chaotic scenarios,” said Nam, the former head of an expert group affiliated with South Korea’s leading spy agency. “He may well be fine and make a reappearance in North Korean state media again, but given his weight and getting worse and worse, his health-related risks will increase dramatically as he ages.” Kim is overweight, reportedly smokes a lot and has other health problems.
Questions have been raised about Kim’s health since he missed the birthday celebration of his late grandfather and state founder Kim Il Sung on April 15, the country’s biggest holiday.
Kim, who is in his 30s, was last seen in public on April 11, when he chaired a meeting on coronavirus prevention and elected his sister as an alternate member of the ruling Labor Party’s political bureau. Since then, state media reported that it sent greetings to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
On Monday, the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Kim sent a message of thanks to workers building tourist facilities in the coastal city of Wonsan, which is where some speculate that he is staying. No photos of him were published.
South Korean intelligence, combined with North Korean state media reports, suggests that Kim may have suffered some form of medical setback, but probably not a fatal one, said Du Hyeogn Cha, principal investigator at the Institute for Policy Studies. Asan of Seoul.
But the root problem may be the unstable nature of South Korean intelligence.
“Even after decades of work, South Korea still has to build a reliable intelligence network to gather information about the North,” said Cha, former intelligence secretary of former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. “It is clear that our government has a certain level of information about the North, but not enough to make a reliable statement about where it is and if it is completely healthy.”
Finding out what’s going on with Kim is important because disability at the top could lead to a bogged decision-making process that could propel intransigents who emerged after the collapse of Kim’s second summit with United States President Donald Trump, in February of last year. The Americans at that summit rejected North Korea’s demands for major relief from sanctions in exchange for a partial surrender of the North’s nuclear capabilities.
The National Intelligence Service, Seoul’s spy agency, has said it cannot confirm whether Kim underwent surgery. If Kim emerges alive and well in state media, overseeing a weapons test or celebrating the construction of one of his many tourism projects, he would join former North Korean officials who were incorrectly reported incapacitated by outside media.
“Kim Il Sung shot dead” remains perhaps the most famous newspaper headline in South Korean history three decades after it caused both public panic and euphoria.
The Chosun Ilbo story of 1986 was initially supported by a South Korean military declaration that North Korea had announced the disappearance of its founder over loudspeakers on the mine-filled land border between rival nations. But just hours after the newspaper’s publication, Kim Il Sung, the current leader’s grandfather, appeared at Pyongyang airport to greet a visiting Mongol delegation.
Another big problem is that, for decades, South Korea never had tight control over the location and health of North Korea’s top leaders, which continues to be kept firmly under wraps, according to Cheon Seong Whun, presidential secretary during the previous government. conservative of the South. .
“Anyone who says they know something for sure is only writing a novel,” Cheon said.
