Lankov and Foster-Carter on the Pyongyang Purges

Lankov, writing in the Asia Times, helps to educate our suspicions about the untimely death of one senior North Korean leader:

The car incident that killed Yi Che-kang was also timely for Jang Song-taek. Yi was widely believed to be a rival of Jang. Now, with Yi dead, Jang seems to have no serious rivals left. The recent assembly session also appointed a new head of the North Korean cabinet. In North Korea, the prime minister is essentially a top technocrat, but it is still significant that this position went to Choe Yong-rim, who is rumored to be close to Jang.

Aidan Foster-Carter, also writing in the Asia Times, answers my open question about the fate of Kim Yong-Il, previously North Korea’s Number Two:

The other main change at the SPA was the sacking of the confusingly named premier Kim Yong-il, after three years in the job. (Another Kim Yong-il remains and is on the up, as party secretary for international affairs.) Dashing any hopes that the top economic job – which this is – would go to some energetic reforming young turk, the new premier is Choe Yong-rim, an 81-year-old veteran loyalist, latterly party secretary for Pyongyang, who was once Kim Il-sung’s bodyguard. Clearly this is a political appointment to manage the succession, rather than new blood to kick-start the economic revival that North Korea desperately needs.

I don’t know anyone who thinks that Kim Jong Eun will hold any real power. Nor does it seem terribly likely that any of these developments will result in a kinder, gentler North Korea, though competition between factions and their patrons would seem to increase the potential for instability within the regime.

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