Actually, I have no idea how much longer the Mighty Munchkin will live, it could be 1 year or 10 years, but I can tell you he's getting ready for it.
Let's start with some basics. Kim Jong Il runs the last Stalinist country in the world, namely the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. The DPROK is more commonly referred to as North Korea. The man known in North Korea as Dear Leader in herited his position from his father Kim Il Sung, who is referred to as Great Leader. Il Sung died in 1994, passing the reins of military leadership to Jung Il. In North Korea the government is controlled via military might, thus affording Jung Il to be the de facto head of state. It took Jung Il a further 3 years to establish his control over the other parts of political power within North Korea. Since then he's been the bane of South Korea, Japan, and the United States, as well as, a threat to his own people and a sometime annoyance to his protectors in China. That covers some of the basics associated with the current state of affairs in North Korea. In fact, that covers a lot of the information that outsiders know of North Korea.
Let's go back a bit further. Korea, as a whole, has a tradition of being a xenophobic culture. Koreans dislike outsiders being involved in their internal affairs, much like everyone else, but they have usually gone a bit further. Historically Koreans have eschewed any contact with outsiders, including mutually beneficial trade, fearing an unwanted influence on their internal society. This has been changing over recent decades in South Korea as successive generations of South Koreans see the benefit of being a part of the world market. They still distrust outsiders, but they tolerate communication and trade.
On June 25, 1950, among growing unrest in the Republic of Korea, aka South Korea, over policies conducted by the US backed ROK government, Kim Il Sung invaded and pushed the US and ROK forces into a tiny area around the southern city of Pusan. This led to the Korean War, of which there is massive amounts of information to write about. To cut a long story short, the war was suspended in 1953. The Korean War did not end, it was merely put on hold indefinitely, let's get that straight. The war could flair up again at any time, and it would be the same conflict with newer weapons.
Over the years following the armistice, Il Sung would rattle his saber, primarily to draw attention away from economic woes being faced in the North. Meanwhile, he built an extreme cult of personality around himself, which was then copied by other Stalinist leaders such as Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania. This personality cult resulted in a number of odd things. First, when Il Sung died, people mourned him hysterically, some were killed in crushes of mourners during funeral ceremonies, others even committed suicide rather than live without their Great Leader. Second, the official residence of the head of state was converted into a giant mausoleum with Kim Il Sung's embalmed body on display inside a glass coffin, much like Lenin. The third, and possibly oddest, is that Kim Il Sung, who was President of the Republic at the time of his death on July 8, 1994, is STILL President of the Republic.
Kim Jong Il had his father declared Eternal President of the Republic as a way of ensuring his own claim to power. If Il Sung was still the president, then Jong Il could maintain his control over the government, not as president or dictator, but as regent to his father. Now that's some political finagling!
Kim Jong Il has kept up his father's practice of saber rattling as distraction to great effect. His most recent episode began in March 2010 with the sinking of the South Korean Navy's Cheonan. Of course the North disputes the evidence that a North Korean torpedo was to blame for the sinking in disputed waters, but, then again, they teach their children that South Korea invaded North Korea at the beginning of the Korean War.
What has happened in the past year to start this? In November of 2009 Jong Il declared the old currency to be worthless, and replaced it with new currecny. This was done so that people who had been amassing private fortunes via underground private enterprises would have to rely more on state sponsored goods and services. This ultimately backfired, and threw the economically challenged nation into further upheaval.
Over the past few months Jong Il has replaced high ranking officials with extremely trusted family members. He has also said he would enact "total war" on the South and on the United States. He has, presumably, increased his production of nuclear weapons, which he has had since 2006. There is speculation that he has been developing a thermonuclear device, which would really elevate him in the nuclear club. He has stepped up propoganda assaults towards the South. There are even reports that his border guards have fired upon, and killed Chinese guards. All the while, the Peoples Republic of China has been even more reserved in their response to his actions than is normal.
China, which has a long history of being beaurucratic and deliberate, doesn't do things or say things without a reason. For China to be as quiet as they have been, without asking for anything in return from other nations, means they know something.
It's no surprise that Kim Jong Il has been seeing increasing health concerns over the past few years. According to his biographies, he is either 68 or 69 years old. There is some discrepency depending on who you believe. We know that Jong Il had, atleast, one stroke in 2008. He's appeared to be physically weaker and unhealthy in photos that have been put out. According to some claims he has diabetes. There is even one scholar in Japan who says that Kim Jong Il died of complications from diabetes years ago, and that one of his dopplegangers has been stepping in to appear for him.
Something is going on in North Korea, and it could be bad news for us all.
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