| Hat tip Josh Stanton at One Free Korea. Excellent point to consider on a Sunday. |
That is why Pyongyang is largely maintaining its charm offensive toward South Korea while refraining from major provocations in an attempt to prod Seoul to improve inter-Korean relations and "open up the coffers," said Ken Gause, a top North Korea expert at CNA Corp., during a lecture.
"The royal economy, which is part of the economy surrounding the Kim family, is losing money. They can't bring in as much money. He's having to spend about twice as much money than his father did to buy support within the regime," Gause said. "He doesn't have the resources to be able to consolidate his power and buy relationships."
| Every thug knows that money is the secret to staying in power. Saleh in Yemen has been able to make deals and get back to Sanaa because he had a couple billion stashed away. Saddam, Castro, Hugo, the mad Ayatollahs, Assad, and most especially Putin all have or had a rainy day fund that was carefully controlled by their most trusted advisors and salted away in the best western investment houses. They each spend/spent billions more keeping the various factions in their countries in line. Billions more on a military counter-balanced by a secret police (or two, one to watch the other). If Pudgy is unable to raise funds his time in power will be cut short -- literally. |
"He is now directly exposed to those power struggles and he can be undermined by that. Not toppled, not coup, but marginalized and turned into a puppet. I think that would happen within the next two to five years. I really think he needs to do this within the next couple of years," Gause said.
| So the real question is whether, indeed, Fat Boy is having cashflow problems. He's still able to afford luxury goods for the inner circle, and the people of Pyongyang still have enough calories (barely). That suggests he has resources (trade with China, those western bank accounts) that we haven't been able to touch. |
The economic question is why North Korea reached out to Japan and Russia, he said.
"A part of why they reached out to Japan was to put pressure on South Korea. It's all about South Korea. That's why they're playing ball with the Russians right now," he said. "It's all getting South Korea to open up the coffers. That's what it's about."
The economic reason also explains why the North hasn't launched another provocation, Gause said.
"They don't want to undermine the charm campaign. There's still, if you read their rhetoric, if you read the media, it does suggest that even though they're talking a harsh language towards the South Koreans, they're keeping the door open for potential engagement," he said.
"If they go and test a missile and especially if they test a nuke, that's going to really undermine that, especially if they return to something like Cheonan, or whatever. It's game over at that point," he said, referring to the North's 2010 sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan.
However, if the North makes a determination at some point in the near future that South Korea is not going to play ball, the North may become much more aggressive in terms of provocations, he said.
Should the North's young leader visit Moscow next month for celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory in World War II, it would suggest there's "stability inside the regime, that he can leave the country," the expert said.
Another factor that should be watched closely is whether Kim's second child is a girl or boy, Gause said. Kim's first child is a girl.
"If it's a girl and Kim Jong-un were to die or become incapacitated, then you've got a major transfer of power issue," he said, raising the possibilities that Kim's brother, Jong-chol, could take over or the North could establish collective leadership.