North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il Dead at 70

As reported by numerous sources, Kim Jong Il has died at the age of 70 (69 by some tallies), after 17 years as the brutal head of North Korea. While the cause of death is uncertain, Bloomberg News says "Kim probably had a stroke in August 2008 and may have also contracted pancreatic cancer, according to South Korean news reports."

Comments

And now the danger begins

[antifoidulus]

This is actually not a welcome event, the heir apparent is only 29 years old and hasn't really integrated himself into the communist party and army power structures. Compare that to his father who was 52 when Kim Il Sung died and had been filling various senior posts for at least a few decades by that point. A power struggle within the army/party could be bad as it could destabilize the country and/or convince the struggling powers to do something rash with the military in an attempt to curry favor. Guess we will have to wait and see.

Re:And now the danger begins

[InsightIn140Bytes]

I wonder what it will mean for Burma/Myanmar also. They're both trade embargoed by US countries that have done a lot of business together. It's rumored that there's been North Korean engineers working in Burma and building huge underground bases for nuclear weapon testing.

Re:And now the danger begins

[DigiShaman]

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton just visited Burma to establish the beginnings of hopefully will be a long a productive relationship. Both for the US, and the people of Burma. But I don't like coincidence. Something tells me either the US or Burma knew Kim Jong Il was on his deathbed and they wanted to establish a plan 'B' ahead of time.

Bonus

[arunce]

2011 was a good year to dictators... what else can be said?

Re:Meh

[antifoidulus]

Slightly off-topic, but the whole juche thing is a very good example of how not to react to a recession. From the Korean war to about the first oil shock in the 70s, North Korea had the 2nd highest per capita GDP in east Asia, only Japan's was higher. But after the oil shock caused a mild recession in North Korea Kim Il Sung decided(the sino soviet split also helped) to become totally "self-sufficient" in a country with very few resources. The result was North Korea going from 2nd richest to pretty much the poorest country in the region in less than a decade. Now fast forward and look at China, seems familiar, communist country with a booming economy.... The fact that we don't know how China will react to a recession(and one will come, I see nothing "magic" in the Chinese economy that would make them recession-proof) is the main reason I think it's too early to say whether or not China will become the worlds biggest economy. If they handle their first big recession as well as the South Koreans handled theirs, then they will almost certainly advance to #1, but if they go all juche, then the US will stay #1 for a while, eventually being passed by India, but not until 2020 at the earliest.

Re:Good Riddance

[jamesh]

Bye, Kim, we won't miss you at all.

Lets wait and see to who steps in to fill his shoes... you may find you miss him more than you'd think.

Re:69, 70, by some....

[Galvatron]

Actually, while that's true about Korean birthdays, in this case people actually aren't sure. Older reports said he was born in 1941, but his official biography says 1942. The general assumption is that he was born in 1941, and 1942 was made up for propaganda. His father, Kim Il-sung would have been 30 in 1942, meaning that, by altering the date, they can celebrate 10 year anniversaries together (so next year they can have a big celebration for Kim Il-sung's 100th birthday and Kim Jong-il's 70th). Since part of how Kim Jong-il held onto power was by trying to absorb some of his father's reflected glory, that made sense as a propaganda move. So he's probably 70, but might be 69 if his "official" birthday is actually accurate.

Also, with regard to age complexity, don't forget that most Koreans literally don't know how to say "forty years old" or older because the numbering system used for ages is only for sequential counting (there's a different numbering system for things which are not always sequential). When necessary, they'll use the other (Chinese-derived) numbering system for ages above 39, but generally will simply avoid talking about it.

Re:It's a big deal

[Pecisk]

"Perestroika didn't work, because Gorbachev, whatever his other qualities, was still a communist at heart, and never pushed the reforms far enough. Glasnost was however quite successful, and, IMHO, was a direct contributor to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and to the subsequent disollution of the USSR."

Disclaimer: I'm from Eastern Europe, so I know a little bit what you talk about. Also I'm socialist by nature, but I don't believe in forced change, nor change forced upon someone, so I'm kinda torn always about this :)

What I really don't like that we mix up terms, especially when talking about regimes. Russians like to mix Fascism with Nazism (which is very ironic taking into account that their country now is definitely Fascist by definition - look up for definition to understand what I'm talking about) when they talk about World War II and their struggle against Hitler.

Also in my opinion what was in USSR after 1925 wasn't communism (before that there was just bloody chaos with both sides killing people like there's no tomorrow). It was totalitarianism with Bolshevist rule - and some socialist juice (like free medicine, stable work or social guarantees) thrown in. If fact all real old Marxists (still people with lot of blood on their hands, but they aimed to open Communist party and allow discussions and criticism) died in 1937 purges by hand of Stalin. After that it was mix of Russian nationalism (as "nation-unifier"), totalitarianism and elitism of one party elite.

If we take bigger picture, most of killings weren't any way connected to Communism or people killed poised any threat to regime. For example big purges usually involved barbaric competition (who will kill most people to show it's dedication to leader) or getting rid of unpleasant people using atmosphere of mistrust and lies.

(I suggest to read what actually community rule meant in Russia in 1905 - 1917, Stalinism era and other stuff. Wikipedia has good start material for this.)

In nutshell - Gorbachev wasn't communist (I'm ready to bet that there were very few key people who actually believed it was possible to achieve in Communist party at that time already) as he was just a part of the this system, which tried to protect itself. However Perestroika didn't work due of other problems - actually reforms were too successful. They opened USSR too much and harsh reality of economics started to kick in. People were tired of promises and compromises between freedom and life quality and talking about changes (but with no any possibility trying them) was too much. Regime couldn't deliver what they wanted also because they had wasted all their money in arm competition with the West - and (ohh irony) in Afghanistan. Also only counteractions like famous unsuccessful August coup (or January OMON attacks) pushed people to support nationalists in their soviet republics to claim independence and separation because they understood quite good what would come.