So little is known about North Korea—its political infrastructure, its decision-making apparatus, the inter-personal and inter-institutional relationships that determine political stability, the state of its economy and its military mind-set. To the outside world —particularly to its neighbour South Korea— North Korea has been an unpredictable State with unpredictable reflexes and adventurist impulses.
Even less is known about the new ruler. All that is known about the pre-2009 brand of Kim Jong-Un is that he was the third son of his father born to his third wife — reportedly a Japanese of Korean origin— that he had at least three, if not longer, years of schooling in the international school of Berne, the capital of Switzerland, where he acquired a working knowledge of English, French and German, that on his return from his Swiss school he studied from 2002 to 2006 in the Kim Il-Sung military university named after his grandfather. He became active in party and Government affairs in 2007 as a member of the organisational committee of the party and as an official of the Ministry of Public Security, which was responsible for the collection of external intelligence.
An important objective of the visit was to brief the Chinese leaders about what Kim Jong-Il called “the rising generation” and to reassure Beijing that the expected generational changes would not affect North Korean bonds with China.
Till 2009, his name had never figured even in rumours as a possible successor to Kim Jong-Il. He was considered too young and too inexperienced in party and Army affairs with very little exposure to the party as well as the Army. The general expectation till 2009 was that one of his two elder brothers might succeed Kim Jong-Il. Following a stroke reportedly suffered by Kim Jong-Il around this period, rumours started circulating in South Korea that Kim Jong-Il was disillusioned with his two elder sons and was, therefore, contemplating to make Kim Jong-Un his would-be successor at the third conference of the WPK, which was scheduled to be held on September 28,2010.
These rumours acquired credence in August 2010, when Kim Jong-Il undertook an official visit to China—-the second in the year that was very unusual— a month before the party conference. There were strong rumours thatKim Jong-Un had accompanied his father.
Kim’s visit was confined to Jilin and Heilongjiang, where he visited several agricultural and industrial establishments—- reportedly in order to learn from the Chinese experience in the modernisation of its economy. In this connection, the Chinese media referred to a visit earlier made by him —-without saying when— to Vietnam to learn from its experience in modernisation. Kim Jong-Il visited a food processing factory, a high-speed train factory and an elementary school in Jilin where his father had studied in the 1920s.
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