The Daily Signal - What You Need to Know About Kim Jong Un’s Health And What Could Be Next for North Korea

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

Reports continue to surface saying that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is in critical condition after a recent surgery.  Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation who specializes in Northeast Asia, joins a bonus episode of The Daily Signal Podcast. We discuss whether there is any substance to those reports, who Kim Jong Un's possible successors would be if he were to die, whether the United States' position regarding North Korea will change if Kim Jong Un is out of the picture, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reports continue to emerge saying that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is in critical condition after a recent surgery. I'm joined in a bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast by Bruce Klinger, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who covers Northeast Asia to discuss the situation. Bruce, it's great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast. Well, thanks for having me. Well, thank you for being with us. We've all seen reports coming out this week that North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un is in critical condition after recent surgery. Can you tell us what you make of all of these reports? Well, with anything at North Korea, it's always hard to discern what is going on. Even when I was at the CIA, we had

difficulty getting as much information as we would like. It seems, though, that the rumors are overblown. We're still waiting for more definitive information, but it seems that it's all based on one single source report, which simply said that Kim Jong-un had heart storage, and he was recuperating in a villa. The next thing we knew is that CNN had a pretty sensationalist headline of Kim is in grave condition, even though the wording of the article didn't seem to back up the headline. And then that just led to a frenzy where some media even reported he was brain dead, though they later deleted that tweet.

So right now the South Korean presidential Blue House is downplaying the reports. They say they haven't seen anything different or unusual in Pyongyang. People with sources in North Korea are saying that life in Pyongyang, the capital does seem to be normal. Even some schools resuming after a COVID shutdown. North Korean broadcasting is normal. And even today, they announced that in Kim's name, greetings were sent to the Cuban president. Now, you know, we tend to be fairly cautious when we're longtime Korea watchers. We've seen a lot of rumors in the past of not only Kim, but his father.

and grandfather performed, had a number of reports where they supposedly died, and then they actually hadn't. That said, we always are vigilant for what could be going on in North Korea. Both the grandfather and the father died. We didn't know that they had died for a bit of time. Even U.S. intelligence was reliant on official announcements. So right now, I think the rumors are overblown, but that said, we have to remain vigilant for what could happen if there's either a death or long-term sickness of Kim Jong-un the leader. Well, Bruce, given that added context, CNN had reported that Kim Jong-un had missed the celebration of his grandfather's birthday on April 15th, and there were reports circulating even very recently this week saying, oh, this adds to speculation that can be more significant because he's missed something that he would never ordinarily miss. What would your response to that be?

Well, that anniversary, which is the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather, who is the founder of North Korea, is a very important holiday. So that did raise questions even before these latest rumors. You know, that said the celebrations this year were more muted, perhaps because of concern about COVID and the impact of having large crowds together. And in the past, both Kim and his father have missed certain events that were. seemed to be very important at the time. But then they came out of isolation and whether they were recovering from a health issue or had just chosen not to go. So it's an indicator, but I don't think it's a critically important indicator. If Kim Jong-un were to pass away or be in a prolonged critical condition that would make him unable to retain his previous position, what would his possible

successors and who would they be? Well, we'd be an unprecedented territory. As we were, both when the grandfather and the father died. The North Korean Constitution still doesn't have any stipulations for formal succession. So we don't know who would take the ring of power. You know, up until a few years ago, the common assessment was that this very Confucian, very traditional Korean culture would never allow a woman to become the ruler. Therefore, any Kim family member that was a woman would, be ineligible. You know, that said Kim's sister, Kim Yo-Jong, in the last two years, has gained a lot of

prominence, a lot of authority. And so she may be the frontrunner right now to take over from Kim if he were to become incapacitated. She may be the only one he really trusts. What we've seen is since Kim came into power in 2011, he's replaced even the most senior level of leaders that minister of defense at least six times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, staff at least six times. So no one really has a great deal of authority, perhaps except for the sister. So she may be right now the most likely to succeed him as unrealistic or as unlikely as that seemed even a year or so ago. If she or someone else were to take the reins, do you think there's any hope for a revolution or a good political outcome in North Korea if Kim Jong-un were to die?

Well, a lot of people would predict as after the death of the father, Kim Jong-il, that this could lead either to an explosion in the sense of North Korea lashing out at South Korea or the U.S. Or an implosion of regime collapse, civil war, loss of control over nuclear weapons. But as we've seen with the previous leadership successions, I think the regime would do the most it could to maintain its stability and its existence. So whether people rally around the sister or some alternative nominee, I don't think necessarily that it's going to lead to an explosion or an implosion. You know, that said, there's really no indications that the regime is going to change its policies. There's no softliner or secret person in North Korea that's going to do a Jeffersonian democracy. So I think the regime would continue regardless of who's in charge. and the policies are likely to remain, both the socialist, domestic, economic policies,

and the very strong, threatening foreign and security policies. They've made clear they don't want to give up their nuclear weapons. They see that as central to their security. And they've really shut the door on negotiations with Washington and South Korea about not only nuclear programs, but really any kind of diplomatic dialogue. If coming to Jordan were to die, would the United States position, with North Korea change at all. I know Fox has reported that the U.S. is working on a contingency plan right now in case he were to die. So what do you think this type of plan could possibly look like? Well, the U.S., along with our allies, South Korea and Japan, have a number of contingency plans, everything from responding to a full-scale invasion by the North to a number of other, not only lower-level military attacks or security threats, but also unrest or

collapse in the north. So there's a range of plans, and certainly the Pentagon would be revising or updating them now if they hadn't already. But if there was uncertainty in the leadership in the north, I don't think the U.S. or its allies would be well advised to try to rush in in our own invasion. It's a country that has a million man army. It's got 60 or more nuclear weapons. It's got missiles that can range not only South Korea and Japan, but the continental U.S. So unless we felt threatened by the loss of authority, it's not something we want to rush into North Korea potentially initiating a war with a nuclear armed state. Well, speaking of nuclear weapons, do you think the U.S. faces more or less danger of a nuclear

attack from North Korea if Kim Jong-un dies or is sick than we did before? Well, the biggest concern would be if there was a loss of control by the regime and that, And it devolved into different factions fighting for control. And then we'd be very nervous about who was controlling the nuclear weapons and whether they had firm control of them. So any kind of change in the north will cause a great deal of concern and even fear amongst military and intelligence circles. So oftentimes the alert status will go up or the readiness level will go up just in case there's some kind of, consequences from a ill-done change in leadership. So we would be very concerned, and we would probably have our missile defense forces and others on a higher state of alert or readiness levels.

Fox News is also reporting that there's a likelihood if a humanitarian crisis, if Kim Jong-un dies, and that the plan would rely heavily on China to step in and manage a situation on the ground inside North Korea, partly due to China's proximity and all the logistical challenges that the U.S. faces providing humanitarian assistance. What's your perspective here on this? Well, over the years, the U.S. has repeatedly tried to reach out to China to discuss contingencies in case of humanitarian disaster or collapse. And Beijing has always been very reluctant to discuss plans. The South Korean government has repeatedly emphasized that the Korean Peninsula is Korean, and that South Korea.

Koreans in conjunction with the North Korean people should be the determiners of their fate. So we don't know what issues might be a catalyst for China going in, either to put it in place someone that they would like to replace Kim Jong-un or just to prevent a huge outflow of refugees across the Chinese-North Korean border. So it's something that we want to be discussing with Beijing ahead of time. But unfortunately, Beijing has often been very reluctant to discuss sort of mutual or joint plans. How is the North Korean media portraying the situation right now? I know you said, obviously, there's no free press there. So how are they, are they talking about it? And if they are, how are they talking about it? They're not talking about it at all. The broadcasting today is

normal. They are just having normal news issues on their TV and print media. So they, they aren't indicating any kind of concern or worry, which either indicates that the reports are false or overblown, or just as happened when the father and the grandfather died, the media didn't report anything, even though the leader may have already been dead or had a stroke until the regime decided to announce it, and then they switched to 180 degrees to, you know, the leader has passed on. So the North Korean media is an indicator, but also. not necessarily an all-inclusive indicator. Well, during an interview in Bloomberg, former U.S. Secretary Leon Panetta had said that if it

is true that Kim Jong-un is unwell, it could be a serious security threat to the U.S. because the Kim family has been the Shul regime in North Korea for over 60 years. What did your perspective there? Certainly North Korea has been a threat ever since its creation in the late 1940s. It has the very large military, not only conventional forces, but nuclear and missile, and even biological and chemical weapons. And they also have proliferated nuclear and missile technology, their crimes against humanity against their own people, as well as engaged in a lot of illicit activities, including in the U.S. financial system. So it really is a multi-spectrum threat to the United States and our allies. But right now, the situation is stable.

It's not necessarily good. We continue to be threatened by them. But it's stable. Our forces overseas are part of the deterrence to prevent North Korea from going too far to intimidate ourselves or our allies. If there is a leadership change successful or unsuccessful, there will be that concern of what could go wrong or what might a new leader do, especially if the situation is deteriorating. So North Korea is a threat both when it's stable. when it's unstable. So if Kim Jong-un were to die, what would the next steps for the country be? Well, we'd have to see who consolidated power, whether they did consolidate power. I wouldn't envision

some major announcement of change in their policy. I think instead they would try to adhere to the of the past, which have been so threatening to their own citizens as well as to the neighbors. So there's no person or group we can point to that would be similar to a Nelson Mandela or a Ansan Suu Kyi or Havel and Chucklessovakia. And there's no government in exile. There's no alternative leadership that we could see other than what's already in the country. Some might think or hope that the people would rise up against the regime. But they've been cowed for so many decades. the security services are so pervasive and brutal in their enforcement of North Korean control over the people.

So, you know, we're not sure that there would be any kind of uprising against the regime. And if it was, it could become quite bloody if the regime is pushing back against the citizens. Well, Bruce, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and for joining us today on the Daily Signal podcast. We appreciate it. Well, thanks for having me. And thanks for listening to today's bonus episode. We do appreciate your patience as we record remotely during these weeks. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation.

It is executive produced by Kate Shrinko and Rachel Del Judas. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Fulia Rampersad, Mark Geinie, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.