North Korea: is the heir apparent influencing policy?

An interesting article in today’s Asia Times may throw some light on today’s incident in the Yellow Sea off the two Koreas.

The author, Kim Myong-Chol, who lives in Tokyo but is described as “an unofficial spokesman” for the North Korean government, is talking up the role of Kim Jong-un, son and heir apparent to President Kim Jong-il.

“The young general has proved in the eyes of the Workers Party of Korea and the military that he is decisive and ready to risk war at anytime with the US and Japan over the slightest infringement of the sovereignty and independence of North Korea,” he writes.

He says that the 27-year-old “has authored papers on nuclear war strategy, missiles and long-range weapons for use in ground warfare and air-defence, winning the acclaim of military leaders.”

Now, this could be complete nonsense – bigging up the previously unknown Kim – or it could indicate that the new Kim is influencing policy. Which would be alarming, as shooting incidents between North and South Korea are on the rise, and a report  by a US atomic scientist suggests that the North has vastly stepped up its nuclear programme.

Professor Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University says that the control room he saw at Yongbyon was “astonishingly modern.”

“Instead of seeing a few small cascades of centrifuges, which I believed to exist in North Korea, we saw a modern, clean centrifuge plant of more than a thousand centrifuges all neatly aligned and plumbed,” he says.

The technicians who showed him around said these were not P1 centrifuges, implying that they were the more advanced P2 model. That would mean North Korea has progressed further than Iran in nuclear technology.

Although Professor Hecker was told that the centrifuges and the new light water reactor were for electricity generation, Mr Kim has other ideas.

“North Korea will likely acquire a second-strike capability with a fleet of nuclear-powered missile submarines by the end of the 2010s,” he writes.

All very worrying in light of what this “unofficial spokeswoman” told Tania Branigan of the Guardian after today’s incident.

“If the South continues its dangerous behaviour, Seoul will be the next target. It will be a sea of fire. Nuclear war could start at any point,” he said.

Hopefully, China and the US will be reaching for whatever diplomatic flame retardant they have.