Marking birth anniversary of late N.K. leaderRanking North Korean officials, including the North’s No. 2 man Choe Ryong-hae visit their late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthplace in Mount Paektu on Feb. 16, 2022, on the occasion of his 80th birth anniversary, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. (Yonhap)
During #DPRK famine, Kim Jong Il built: 100 exhibition room facility 200m beneath ultra-weird Int'l Friendship museum $800M mausoleo-palace Spent $1.5B on fighter jets, $7B/year on defense.
Kim Jong-un observes 8th anniv. of father’s death North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C, front) visits the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang on Dec. 17, 2019, to pay tribute to his deceased father, Kim Jong-il, as the North marks the eighth anniversary of the former leader’s death, in this photo released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. The mausoleum enshrines the mummified bodies of Kim Il-sung, the current leader’s grandfather and the founder of the North Korean government, and Kim Jong-il. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
Has anyone asked President Moon what he thinks about his new best friend locking away whole families in prison camps?:
Kim Ok
Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s secretary Kim Ok, once rumored to be the late ruler’s secret fourth wife, appears to have been sent to a prison camp, a local government official exclusively told the JoongAng Ilbo on Wednesday.
South Korean intelligence authorities concluded that Kim Ok was imprisoned after Kim Jong-il died in December 2011, according to the source, who requested anonymity. Kim Ok appears to have been sent to a prison camp for political criminals in 2014 for her links to Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Jang was once considered the second most powerful man in the regime.
Jang was executed on Dec. 12, 2013, nearly two years after Kim Jong-un took power following his father’s death. At the time, Jang served as vice chairman of the Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission and chief of the Central Administrative Department. He was apprehended in November 2013 along with his close aides, kicked out of the party and tried in a special military tribunal. He was found guilty of “anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts in a bid to overthrow the leadership of the party and state and the socialist system,” in the words of North Korea’s official media.
Kim Ok is still alive, the South Korean government official said. Her close family members were all imprisoned as well, according to the source, but it is not known whether they’re still alive.
Kim Ok, who is 53, was seen shadowing Kim Jong-il inside and outside North Korea wherever he went. This caused local analysts to believe she was the late leader’s fourth wife, though North Korean media identified her as his secretary. She was so close to Kim Jong-il that when he visited China in May 2011, she sat next to him in his private vehicle. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Kim Jong-un is taking a play out of his father’s denuclearization playbook with his announcement that he will seal the shafts at this nuclear test site:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has promised to dismantle a “northern” nuclear test site in May in full view of experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States, Cheong Wa Dae said on Sunday.
Kim made the promise during talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the president’s top press secretary Yoon Young-chan said.
Kim said the site is still “usable” and “there are two more shafts that are bigger than the one (to be dismantled) which are sturdy,” according to Yoon.
Kim did not specify the location of the site to be dismantled, but given the North’s past announcement, it is believed to be in Gilju, North Hamgyong Province. On April 21, Kim declared the shutdown of the Gilju site, along with a freeze on missile and nuclear tests. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but when I read this I though immediately back to 2008 when Kim Jong-il blew up a cooling tower at it Yongbyon nuclear plant:
In a gesture demonstrating its commitment to halt its nuclear weapons program, North Korea blew up the most prominent symbol of its plutonium production Friday.
The 60 foot, or 18meter, cooling tower at North Korea’s main nuclear power plant collapsed in a heap of shattered concrete and twisted steel, filmed by international and regional television broadcasters invited to witness the event.
The destruction of the tower, the most visible element of the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, about 100 kilometers, or 60 miles north of Pyongyang, bore witness to the incremental progress that has been made in U.S.-led multilateral efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. [NY Times, June 27, 2008]
The North Koreans eventually rebuilt the cooling tower and reopened the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2013. As little as two months ago satellite imagery showed the plant producing plutonium. Much like with the destruction of the cooling tower, the sealing of shafts at their Punggye-ri nuclear test site is easily reversible at a time of the Kim regime’s choosing. However, when this event happens most of the international media and Korean leftists will once again seize on the dramatic images this is sure to bring as evidence that the Kim regime really means to denuclearize this time.
I will know Kim Jong-un means to denuclearize when the entire Yongbyon plant is demolished and his nuclear weapons and material are removed from the country. Until this happens everyone is just continuing to play along with this great facade which the closure of the nuclear test site will be another part of.
People in North Korea dance on the streets in this photo from the North’s Korean Central News Agency on Feb. 16, 2018, to mark the birth anniversary of the country’s late former leader Kim Jong-il, which is named “the Day of the Shining Star.” (Yonhap)
Below is a fascinating read in the Nikkei Asian Review about how the Kim regime has long claimed that Northeastern China should be ceded to North Korea:
Sino-North Korean relations have traversed three eras in China — under Mao, Deng and Xi — and a North Korean dynasty of three Kims — Il Sung, Jong Il and Jong Un.
Back in May 2000, Kim Jong Il made his first trip to China as North Korea’s top leader. An informal visit, it was kept under wraps until Kim, the father of North Korea’s current leader, returned to Pyongyang.
Kim had a big request for Jiang Zemin, then China’s president.
“I am preparing for an inspection of the northeast region [of China],” Kim told Jiang. “Could you make arrangements for it?”
Jiang’s face contorted into a quizzical expression. The word Kim used was the Korean equivalent of shicha, a Chinese term meaning inspection. Inspections are what leaders conduct to see how their own common people are doing.
Kim’s use of inspection not only contradicted reality, it was disrespectful to China.
Jiang told Kim in a calm manner, “In your case, you mean visit, correct?”
“No,” Kim snapped back immediately. “It is an inspection. My father [Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s first leader] told me that the entire ‘northeast’ belongs to us.”
Stunned by Kim’s response, Jiang asked the North Korean leader, “How can the ‘northeast’ be all yours?”
“This is not my father’s view,” Kim said. “This is a remark made by Chairman Mao Zedong,” the founding father of the People’s Republic of China.
Again, Jiang was flabbergasted. This time, he summoned an official from the Communist Party’s International Liaison Department and ordered him to check whether Mao had actually made such a remark in the past.
The official reported back to Jiang the following afternoon, confirming Mao’s remarks. [Nikkei Asian Review]
You can read the rest at the link, but Mao made a comment to Kim Il-sung how prior Korean dynasties had been pushed out of Northeast China to south of the Yalu River by past Chinese emperors. Kim Il-sung used that comment to justify North Korea being ceded a chunk of Northeast China which Chinese leaders over the years have scoffed at to include when Kim Jong-il brought it up. It is unclear if the current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shares such delusions of grandeur, but considering that his grandfather and father believed in it, I would not be surprised if Kim Jong-un doesn’t bring up the issue again at some point with China as well.
