FEW FAMILIES are as shrouded in myth as the reclusive Kim regime of North Korea.
Kim Jong-Nam, the eldest son of the recently deceased dictator Kim Jong-Il, famously left the family fold and apparently spends much of his time in the Chinese gambling resort of Macao.
Until this month, he was known mainly for a bizarre clandestine attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland in 2001, using a fake passport and Chinese alias that translates as “fat bear” – a stunt that reportedly embarrassed his late father and ended any chance of succeeding him.
Now Jong-Nam has offered a rare glimpse behind the family curtain in an extraordinary book in which he reveals his love for his “tenderhearted” father, his fears for North Korea’s future, the Chinese spies who watch him and his father’s doubts about handing power to his youngest son and Jong- Nam’s half brother, Kim Jong-Un.
“My father was more opposed to the third-generation hereditary succession than anybody and there must have been internal factors that forced him to change his view,” he says.
“But the North Korean people are so used to obeying orders solely based on their belief in bloodline of [North Korea’s founder] Kim Il- Sung and Kim Jong-Il, that they may have trouble accepting any successor outside of that bloodline.”
Penned by Tokyo-based journalist Yoji Gomi, the book is based on more than 150 email exchanges and seven hours of interviews since the two men met by chance in 2004. In a message on October 22nd, 2010, Jong-Nam agreed to answer Gomi’s questions on condition the book’s publication coincides with the first anniversary of Kim Jong-Il’s decision to anoint Jong-Un successor.
“Nobody with common sense could agree to a third generation hereditary succession,” he wrote shortly after his father’s funeral in January. “I doubt that a young hereditary successor, with only two years political training, can take over [a system of] absolute power that has lasted 37 years.”
Jong-Nam is careful throughout the book to say he has nothing to do with North Korean politics, but “common sense” tells him that reforms and an open-door policy are vital for his country to achieve economic growth, after living in China for so long and observing its own explosive economic growth.
He adds China does not welcome hereditary rule but “understands it in support of North Korea’s stability”.
“I am being either watched or protected by the Chinese government, a fate that I cannot avoid, but I don’t have particular personal ties with Chinese government officials. China protects us because we are the family of the leader of its neighbour, not because the Chinese government considers me the next leader.
He adds: “What North Korea wants most is normalisation of its ties with the United States. It will then deal with stabilising the Korean Peninsula and take measures to rebuild its economy. Right now, tensions with the United States and South Korea are too severe. It’s difficult to expect North Korea to reform and take an open-door policy.”
Jong-Nam says he has never met his half-brother Jong-Un and is no position to comment on his personality or fitness as leader. Asked however to give a message to his brother during an interview in January 2011, he had this to say.
“Without reforms, North Korea will collapse and when such changes take place, the regime will collapse. I think we will see valuable time lost as the regime sits idle fretting over whether it should pursue reforms or stick to the present political structure.”
On his relationship with his father, he writes: “My father really missed me after I moved to Geneva, Switzerland [where he spent eight years studying], and I myself cried when I left him. I think he felt lonely when I left.
“But the target of his love moved from me to my half-brothers and sister, who were born after I left. My father seemed to become more cautious about me as I grew up and became, to him, a little capitalist. I grew further apart from him because I insisted on reform and market-opening and was eventually viewed with suspicion.”