Kim Jong-Il is Dead... What Now?

[Update: More links]
Andrei Lankov's analysis is the one I trust the most. I've listened to him talk about North Korea in person, and he grew up in Stalinist [Correction:] Communist Russia, so he knows a thing or two about how these kinds of countries are run.
Two Posts from the Marmot's Hole with tons of links to coverage to other places.
AsiaPundits includes pictures and video clips.
I like Kushibo's analysis a lot.
LA Times
Toward a Kim Jong-il Reading List (from a Marmot's Hole commenter)

Before we get into speculation, here is something that every article about North Korea should include:

North Korea still operates concentration camps. There is only one limit on how shocking the scale of the human rights crisis in North Korea is: how much information we have on it. The fact Camp 22 exists, and has done so more or less quietly, is a damning repudiation of whatever lessons we were supposed to have learned in Auschwitz, and on every Human Rights organization in East Asia.

A documentary/presentation about a North Korean refugee who grew up in a North Korean gulag.

Get started at LiNK - Liberty in North Korea

More on North Korean death camps.

Come back to this post for updates as I'm able to write them:
I'll post some (pure) speculation on what might happen next, with my own (only somewhat informed) thoughts on how likely it's going to happen:

So... hit refresh and stuff.

From Kimchee GI via The Marmot's Hole: The Announcement on North Korean News: (warning: watching this might make you a traitor to the South Korean government)


Links
The Diplomat on "What Next?"
Foreign Policy doesn't pedict a Pyongyang Spring.
English Chosun predicts a possible power struggle.
Blog: North Korea Leadership Watch "Kim Jong Il has Passed Away"
Wall Street Journal's KJI Announcement plus Analysis
A piece of analysis I like:
Ask A Korean! on why North Korea's ONLY priority is, and must be, regime survival.
Open thread at ROK Drop - new links and revelations might pop up here in the comments.

[Update: don't bother with the Marmot's Hole. The commenters there are being even more asinine than usual on this occasion.] The Marmot's Hole - new links and revelations are highly likely to pop up here in the comments.

In my opinion, The absolutely crucial factor in what happens next is simply this: how well has Kim Jong-il's heir, Kim Jong-un, had consolidated power before Kim Jong-il died -- if he hasn't, all bets are off, and we could have civil war in North Korea by Christmas. If he has, then a lot will depend on what North Korean civilians do with the news bombshell, and how the government/military reacts.

The Key Variables:

• The level of loyalty North Korean civilians have toward the Kim dynasty (fed by propaganda), balanced against self-interest.
• The level of loyalty North Korea's military has toward the Kim dynasty, balanced against its loyalty toward its own military leadership - which could change drastically depending on how Kim Jong-un treats that military leadership.
• The North Korean military's available resources, and whether they have the ability to quell an angry village here and there without losing grip on other areas.
• The amount of residual anger that remains, after the failed currency reform (shorter summary here), and the level of conviction among North Korean citizens that the underground market system will take care of them better than the Kim dynasty has.
• The true amount of influence China has in the region... which might be a lot more than we expect, but which might also be a lot less.
• China's long-term strategy for North Korea, which, given that China's the only country North Korea's had serious contact with over the last decade, will influence events here more than any other nation.

Whether Kim Jong-un has or hasn't consolidated power, here are some things I predict either way:

1. More bluster and tough talk. When has anything in North Korea ever NOT led to more bluster and tough talk from the leaders?

2. Some shit will happen at the border, or in the disputed waters near the border, of the South. Some shots will be fires, some sabers will rattle, some fur will bristle.

3. There will be an increase in defectors across the northern, and probably also the southern border.

4. Information will flow into North Korea faster than ever before. Either because Kim Jong-un is busy consolidating power, or because he sees this as a good time to become more open, or because he's distracted making sure things are stable around Pyongyang, the borders will become even more porous than before.

5. Once information pours into North Korea faster than ever before, it will continue becoming harder and harder to govern the nation.

6. Groups in South Korea and China that have been working with refugees, or with getting information into North Korea, will benefit from global attention (if the world media gives any damn at all about the people, and has any follow-up at all... so I might have to put this one under "maybe")

7. North Korea connections, spies, and Nork friendly useful idiots in the south will also be active trying to intimidate or silence those groups, or minimize their actions.

8. There will be renewed talk about trying to get aid into North Korea, and North Korea will try to get as much aid as possible without making any meaningful concessions... or maybe even WITH concessions.

9. USA and South Korea will both make plays for more influence in North Korea, but will be frustrated to find that, because of their confrontational or silent policies in recent times, they will only get as much influence as China wants them to have... without offering more than they want to offer, or on terms they would consider unacceptable.

10. Some act of belligerence will happen, probably at the border. If North Korea gets away with it, the leader, or those gunning for leadership, will try to take credit for it. If North Korea doesn't get away with it, those same people will be blaming their rivals for power for the botch.

11. If there's a power struggle, and even if there isn't, the new leader (presumably Kim Jong-eun) will be executing a few former high-ranking officials and administrators, to be sure he has no rivals to power, and people loyal to him surround him.

12. Reunification will not happen in the next three years. It will not happen until South Korea has a viable long-term reunification plan, if South Korea wants it then. It is more likely North Korea will be absorbed into China than into South Korea in the next three years, or slog through trying to make it on its own, with help from both South Korea and China.

13. Some useful idiots will suggest expelling all South Korea's foreign workers and replacing them with North Koreans to do DDD jobs. And here's why that won't work.

If Kim Jong-un hasn't consolidated power...

1. The military, and probably a few other people, will make a run for leadership.

2. If there's a struggle for leadership, the losers will be executed.

3. If the struggle for leadership becomes long and drawn-out, the chance of a "Pyongyang Spring" and a grass-roots revolution will increase.

4. If Kim Jong-un dies during the "Game of Thrones," the chance of a peoples' revolution skyrockets, limited only by North Korean civilians' ability to communicate with eachother (better than the military's lines of communication)

5. The candidate who has China's backing will almost certainly prevail, except (but then, maybe even) in the eventuality of an all-out civil war.

6. I would be utterly unsurprised to see a puppet government installed by China at the end of this. I don't think any other country in the world is prepared, or has enough influence in North Korea, to have a realistic shot at this.

7. China won't, however, want to do a naked takeover move, because it would lead to a standoff between China and North Korea, and South Korea and USA (and probably Japan). Given how enmeshed those economies are with each other, China is probably more likely to shut down the North Korean border, tell refugees to flood south, and allow North Korea to lapse into anarchy, than to risk actions that will lead to enough alienation between China and its main trading partners, to actually damage that trade.

8. Signs of weakness or instability in North Korea's leadership will lead to a resurrection of the black market system in North Korea, and a flood of refugees heading north and/or south.

9. Seoul/South Korea will be utterly unprepared for that flood of refugees, and once world headlines stop covering it, will mostly be left to their own devices to deal with them.

If Kim Jong-un HAS consolidated power...

1. Like a new departmental manager, changing things needlessly just to show he's boss, he's going to do a few things to leave his mark on the new state -- including the possibility of another act of aggression toward South Korea, like the Cheonan sinking or the Yangpeyong Island bombing, and subsequent propaganda campaigns, and also including the possibility of economic or military or foreign policy reforms that will have to make him appear strong, while also making political sense for his relationship with the two biggest influences on his ability to rule North Korea: China and the Nork Military.

1.1 If these changes go well, who knows how much longer we'll see a totalitarian regime in North Korea?
1.2 If these changes go poorly, like the failed currency reform, the people might not be far from taking to the streets... but that's hard to tell, because we know so little about North Korea.

2. His survival depends on how well his father's administrative structure was designed -- if he has any ropes still to learn, things could get ugly.

3. His rule and authority depends, most of all, probably, on continuing to limit his citizens' access to information -- once civilians can communicate freely with civilians in other villages and towns, all bets are off, unless they take to him real well... but it's hard to know how he'll be able to make life better for average North Korean citizens, without opening the borders to more trade and aid, and having more news and information get in as well: information which might destabilize his regime, and turn people against him.


What I'd like to See...
I'd like to see Kim Jong-un come in, and take power peacefully.
I'd like to see more food aid, overseen by international human rights organizations, so that it isn't diverted to the Military.
I'd like to see the black market flourish, and turn into a trade infrastructure by which most North Koreans can provide for themselves.
I'd like to see the border get more porous, but slowly enough that there's a transition, not a bloody revolution.

(Ding Dong) Kim Jong Il is Dead

The post I'm updating with links and speculation/predictions is here.

I'll be updating as more news comes available, and as I have time to add more thoughts between baby feedings and diaper changes.

Yonhap News is reporting that Kim Jong Il died of fatigue on a train at 8:30AM on December 17. That seems to be all we've got so far. And since North Korea's official news outlet is blocked on the South Korean internet, readers abroad will be able to read his hagiographies sooner, or more easily, than I will.



I have never felt less inclined to say "Rest in Peace" in fact, if the afterlife really is, as TV makes it out to be, a world of ironic punishments, then he'll be reborn as a political prisoner in Camp 22.

The big question is, "What's next" and while I'm hitting "Publish" right now, check back at this blog very soon for a following post with some thoughts and links on what's happening in North Korea, and what I think will happen.

Carping on about Christmas Music...

Every year I rant and whine a little bit about Christmas music -- because the songs are overplayed, and come back like zombies year after year, instead of disappearing after a reasonable amount of radio play. But this year, I've had a realization that changes everything... but first, a quick recap of my old ramblings about Christmas music:

five artists that shouldn't, and five artists that need to make a Christmas album
(anything yet from Neko Case, Regina Spektor, Jack White, Alicia Keys, The Flaming Lips, or Tom Waits? I mean, we had one from Justin Bieber this year)
one Christmas song I liked
Tim Minchin's Post-Christian Christmas song
Sufjan Stevens' fabulous Christmas albums

And, good enough to rate re-posting: the funniest Christmas Music youtube video (in my opinion)


OK then...

I can't believe I haven't looked more into Christmas music by Jazz artists before.

Why? Because my problem with Christmas music summarizes thusly:

Christmas music always either reinterprets a classic song, or composes a new song.
If you reinterpret a classic song, your version probably won't stand up to a version done previously by another artist... and the classics have been done to death. If you write an original song, given that Christmas classics are some of the prettiest, most majestic, and enduring songs ever written in Western music, your new song probably won't stand up to the sheer songwriting featured in other christmas songs. You can't win.

But jazz is a no-brainer, really. Why? Because the whole thing many jazz artists do is reinterpret "standards." What does that mean? Taking a song that's been sung many times before, and bringing something new, unique, and special to it. And that was exactly the problem I described with Christmas music.

How many artists have sung "Mack the Knife," "Cry Me A River" or "My Funny Valentine"? Tons. And more will. And jazz artists work to take something that's been done before, and bring something new to it, to make it fresh again. Some artists have done especially memorable versions of some of those songs, but there's always room (if you're a good jazz musician) for another stab at it. So... starting with Verve and Blue Note records I'll be giving Jazz Christmas music a try.


One more thing:
Added to my list of artists who need to make a Christmas album:
Jamie Cullum


Adele


Jazz artist Avishai Cohen, from Israel... is invited to do some excellent Hanukkah music, if he prefers.


Portishead shouldn't make a whole Christmas album, but they'd make the saddest Christmas song ever made, and that would be worth it.


Stars should, too.

First Smile, and...

This video was taken the day Babyseyo did his first smile -- before this, there's been smile-like expressions, but always followed by puke. Sunday was his first smile that was clearly a response to my talking to him.

But as you'll see... I don't think he likes baby talk.

North Koreans instead of Migrant Foreign Workers? Why Not?

This is a cut-and-paste from a comment discussion I had here with a commenter who was convinced South Korea's labor shortage (aging population) could be solved by expelling foreign migrant workers currently manning South Korea's assembly lines, and replacing them with North Koreans.

I think you're being a little naive if you think that North Koreans will happily be imported to work as South Korea's labor force, and happily swallow, en masse, the second-class treatment DDD workers and tradespeople receive here.

Meanwhile, a group of people who have been raised and educated under such a vastly different ideology than the South, have been regularly instructed on why the South is inferior, and why they should hate or mistrust South Koreans, and whose lack of proper nutrition during childhood have left many physically or mentally stunted... do you really think it'll take any less work and cost integrating them into Korean society, or changing Korean society to accomodate them, than it has to bring South-Asians into South Korea? I don't. Perhaps more... with extra frustration, because while Korean society's dealing with their challenges, both sides will also be dealing with disillusionment: "I thought reunification would be easier than this" where with immigrants, at least everybody on either side already recognizes it won't always be a smooth ride.

Will North Korean workers have the skills and training to fill the needed roles? Or wil NK electricians be lost on any system with technology newer than 1982? Will enough of them have the capacity (poor nutrition = stunted mental capacity) to be trained/retrained? And if there are Indonesian or Filipino electricians with their tradesmen's cards in hand, wanting to immigrate, who are excited enough to come to Korea that they've already completed a survival level Korean course? Why would we turn that guy away in favor of a North Korean who may or may not be able to complete the training?

Finally, have you read much about how North Korean refugees are treated in South Korea? It's kinda shitty. Why do you think that would change if more came... and if enough came to, say, occupy Gwanghwamun square for a protest, what makes you think they wouldn't, and disturb shit in a host of other ways? --and the South wouldn't be able to deport them easily, the way they do with south-asians who demand collective bargaining rights.

The "because we're one blood" anodyne just won't cut it here, and everybody'll get to say that just once to delay actually dealing with the issues, before people get upset at not having their grievances addressed. I'm one blood with my sister, but we used to fight like cats and dogs.