Potential Upheaval in North Korea?
CNN reporter Kyung Lah recently interviewed an anonymous North Korean defector who escaped the totalitarian regime around a year ago–making him one of the most recent defectors to enter the global community. Despite his fear that “North Korea could manage to hunt him down in his new life,” he shared some details about the Hermit Kingdom with Lah:
“I can tell you for sure, the North Korean regime will collapse within 10 years,” he says without hesitation.
“Kim Jong Un is mistaken that he can control his people and maintain his regime by executing his enemies. There’s fear among high officials that at any time, they can be targets. The general public will continue to lose their trust in him as a leader by witnessing him being willing to kill his own uncle.”
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“There is no collapse of North Korea while Kim Jong Un is alive. We can only expect the opening or reform of North Korea when Kim Jong Un is removed by an external power. North Korea will not collapse as long as Kim Jong Un lives.”
Most know North Korea for its prison/work camps and its complete disregard for human rights; just hinting at disapproval of or intolerance for the regime could land a North Korean and his or her entire family–regardless of their individual views–in a labor camp for the rest of their lives. A country with such gross intolerance for human rights has sparked indignation across the globe, though no nation has made any genuine attempts at liberating the country.
The situation reminds me of the IR scholar who claimed that if every country had nuclear weapons, the global community would be better off because no one nation would risk aggressing against another in a major way due to the threat of M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction). While this scenario may offer stability, when a country with such atrocious human rights violations also holds nuclear capabilities (like North Korea), any attempts at intervention become increasingly riskier, and may deter any meaningful action towards the liberation of that nation’s people.
The defector’s claim that North Korea is nearing collapse has dubious implications. When the previous dictator of North Korea (Kim Jong-il) died, Kim Jong-un, his son, was present to take the mantle. Kim Jong-un has no heirs, so assumedly he would have to choose one of his brothers to ascend to his position should he die. If he dies before naming an heir, the situation could become even more complex. If his death results in a power vacuum, one might assume that that region’s polar power–China–would move in. Or perhaps the people of North Korea would establish their own government. Regardless, the collapse of the North Korean regime presents a unique opportunity for the international community to seize North Korean territory, liberate its people, merge the land into a neighboring country’s territory, and so on. Though the outcome is uncertain, it appears that the collapse of North Korea could offer the potential for multilateral cooperation among nations, coupled with the opportunity to make the world feel slightly more secure.