North Korea lashed out at the U.S. Monday after Washington committed blasphemy by slapping sanctions directly on leader Kim Jong-un – a grave insult in a country that reveres Kim as a god-king.
“The North Korean regime wants its people to revere Kim Jong-un as a god, and thus the regime considers U.S. criticism as blasphemy,” North Korea expert at the RAND Corporation Bruce Bennett told Borderless News Online.
In response to Washington’s naming Kim as a horrid human rights abuser and slapping sanctions on the leader, North Korea shut down the back channel by which the two nations communicate – North Korea’s United Nations mission in New York City. The sanctions are the first in which the U.S. has ever directly named Kim.
Bennett said Kim’s move appears to be primarily the North Korean regime lashing out, but also illustrates how little leverage North Korea has with the United States, as there was not much else that it could do to pressure the United States, short of starting a conflict.
It appears that North Korea is hoping that by taking this action, the United States will reconsider and drop the financial sanctions on criticism of Kim Jong-un, Bennett added.
KIM JONG-UN’S GRASP ON POWER
The tit-for-tat has happening at a shaky time for the regime, when it remains unknown how firm the young and untested leader’s grip on power is.
Soon after coming to power, Kim purged the ruling class of anyone he believed was a threat, and that included ordering the execution of his own uncle, as well as advisers who had worked with his father, Kim Jong-il, for years.
Bennett said that from his discussions with North Korean defectors, Kim is seriously feared by the elites in North Korea.
“They worry that they, too, could be subjected to purges, executions, and/ or imprisonment. And as best I can tell, Kim is viewed by many in the North as an ineffective ruler of North Korea, having failed to achieve his promise on taking power that he would make North Korea a ‘strong and prosperous state,’” he said.
“Kim does not appear to have won the hearts of most people in North Korea, including the elites. Rather, he rules by brutality,” he said.
“That does not necessarily mean that the regime is on the verge of a collapse, but rather that people are unhappy but scared to death to do anything about their unhappiness,”
he said.
Still, over time that seems to be gradually changing, with cases of public dissent starting to develop, he noted.
Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economic Institute, told Borderless News Online that in a regime such as the one in North Korea, a full transition where the new leader has a firm grip on power can take up to a decade.
Kim is the dominant figure in the North Korean system but is still securing his grip on power, and the transition will likely still take years. However, if Kim misplays his hand, he could face resistance to his hold on power, he added.
The younger Kim is viewed with less esteem in the eyes of North Koreans than either his father or grandfather. While his grandfather was revered by North Koreans, the younger Kim was relatively unknown before coming to power, and seems to engender less support among the people, Stangarone said.
That being said, the North Korean system is designed to preclude a coup and one would present difficulties for potential plotters. While Kim may not be as popular as his father or grandfather, he does draw legitimacy from those relationships. Any new government after a coup would likely need either another family member to provide legitimacy or find a way to legitimize itself, he added.
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