More Purge Rumors from North Korea

According to the week’s juiciest North Korea gossip, the proteges of Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law, and O Kuk Ryol, Kim Jong Il’s long-standing associate, are being purged to consolidate Kim Jong Eun’s prospects for succession:

A high-level North Korean source said that nearly 200 senior officials were executed or detained by the State Security Department in early December last year. They include many senior officials of trading companies under the military and the party, such as the head of Sogyong Trading Corporation under the party’s Financial and Accounting Department; the head of “No. 54” Trading Company under the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces; Pak Jong-su, the chief of a military-run coal trading company; the head of the general bureau of fuel oil; and Ri Jong-ho, the head of Taehung Trading Company.

Ri Chol-su, the head of the Taehung Trading Company’s Wonsan branch and a protege of Jang’s, jumped to his death during interrogation by the State Security Department on charges of illegally amassing of wealth and espionage. The matter was about to be closed after his suicide but instead it fueled a second-round of purges, with many others arrested on the strength of statements extracted under interrogation.

The purge was conducted with zeal by the senior deputy chief of the State Security Department U Dong-chuk, who discussed details of the plan with Kim father and son.

It’s frankly hard to know what to make of this. The reports of O’s associates being purged are consistent with past reports, but this is the first report I’ve read in a published source that Jang was being sidelined. The only thing I’ve heard to that effect is an unpublished rumor I heard from a well-connected South Korean source. According to that rumor, the real power-broker in Pyongyang now isn’t really Jang Song Taek, but his wife (and Kim Jong Il’s sister) Kim Kyong Hui. My source tells me that the relationship between Kyong Hui and Jang Song Thaek lies somewhere between that of the Clintons and the Borgias. This report is consistent with those rumors, but there’s really no way of knowing whether any of this is true.

I treat reports about North Korea’s palace intrigues with particular suspicion. What interests me more is the very existence of a purge or power struggle, because either has the potential to reverse the usual dynamic, by which members of the “core” class are invested in the system’s stability. Purges can be stabilizing in the medium term, but in the short term, it’s not hard to see the destabilizing potential of placing powerful people — possibly people who are armed, or who control people who are — in a kill-or-be-killed situation.

Possibly related: More North Koreans are said to be applying for Chinese citizenship, which could be either of cause or an effect of the purge.