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The most likely mid- and long-term scenario when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies or goes into a coma is that the North Korean regime will survive, North Korea experts in Seoul said Wednesday. ¡°If the system collapses, 3 million people including the military and party leadership would be deprived of their privileges. They and China won't allow that to happen," one of them reasoned.
¡ß New leadership
North Korea is likely to opt for hereditary succession or collective leadership or both. "If Kim insists on hereditary succession, no one will be able to oppose it," said Chung Sung-jang, the head of the Inter-Korean Relations Research Office at the Sejong Institute. "In that case, the advantage would be with Kim's first son Jong-nam (37), who is close to Jang Song-taek, administration director of the North Korean Workers' Party," said Baek Seung-joo, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis. But an official with the Korea Institute for National Unification disagreed, saying the successor was most likely to be Kim's second son Jong-chul,(27), who is closely linked to Hyon Chol-hae, deputy director of the Central Political Department of the North Korean People's Army.
Chon Hyun-joon, a senior researcher at KINU, said collective leadership could be more appealing. ¡°North Korea won¡¯t want to invite criticism of hereditary succession at home and abroad." And Ken Gause, director, Foreign Leadership Studies Program of the Center for Strategic Studies at the Center for Naval Analysis, also said collective leadership centered on the party and military elite or the National Defense Commission was more likely.
¡ß Direction
¨ç Hardliners
Such a collective leadership is likely to be more hardline than the current regime. "It may employ a more uncompromising in a bid to prevent internal confusion," said Ryu Dong-ryeol, a researcher at the Police Science Institute. It will continue a "cold-war isolation and exclusive policy," he added. Chung Young-tae a senior researcher at KINU, meanwhile speculated that the North will "maintain the existing uniform control system and the military-first ideology."
¨è Reform and opening
Yet Pyongyang could establish a new leadership in an attempt to survive through reform and market opening, according to Suh Jae-heon, the director of the North Korea Study Division at KINU. "The best possible card for stability on the Korean Peninsula is for the new leadership to seek public support by reviving the economy, which means giving up nuclear weapons and bringing reforms and market opening," Prof. Cho Dong-ho of Ewha Womans University agrred. "Should the new leadership fail to revive the economy, however, military-first politics could resurface and the military wield stronger influence," warned Lee Ki-dong, a senior researcher at the Institute of National Security Strategy.
¨é A confusing mix
Prof. Rhu Gil-jae at University of North Korea Studies said because support from the military is essential ¡°the new leadership may take a tough line initially but shift to reform and market opening for the sake of survival.¡± In the 1980s, China, too, adopted market opening following a period of conflict between reformers and hardliners.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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