[Editor’s note: The original article was written before reports that Jang had not only been purged, but executed.]

　　　With the purge of Jang Sung-Taek, Vice Chairman of North Korea’s National Defense Commission, North Korea appears to be moving closer to a crisis point.

　　　The uncle of Kim Jong-un, First Secretary of the North Korean Workers’ Party, Jang played the part of Kim’s guardian the past two years. The abrupt purge embraces the possibility of delaying settlement of issues involving Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea, to which the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is giving high priority, and could embolden Kim to implement tough measures, such as another nuclear test, as he brutally pursues a further concentration of his authority.

　　　The purge already has had a serious and direct bearing on South Korea, warns Hong Hyong, editorial advisor to The One Korea Daily News, a Tokyo-based journal advocating Korean unification. Observes Hong:

　　　“I am of the opinion that Kim Jong-un is considering ‘physically removing’ Jang in order to eliminate a potential source of future trouble. After all, the regime maintained by the Kim dynasty was established with a ‘sole authority’ through bloody purges carried out by Kim Il-sung. His son and successor Kim Jong-il followed suit, solidifying his authority by implementing widespread purges without sparing even his uncle, stepmother, or half brothers. And Jong-un, Jong-il’s third son viewed as the most brutal of all his siblings, succeeded the dynasty as the third generation heir.”

　　　No matter how much concentration of authority and power is pursued, however, no nation can be guaranteed stable governance so long as it resorts to a reign of terror with omnipresent purges. Granted that the North Korean situation can only be construed as further nearing a serious internal crisis, but one must at this juncture also view Jong-un as aiming to realize Korean reunification—the desire of his deceased grandfather and his father. The abnormal state of affairs developing in the South today, stresses Hong, reflects a desperate struggle waged by the North to reunify Korea on its own terms.

　　　Difficulty to believe though it may be for many of us Japanese appalled by President Park Geun-hye’s recent series of anti-Japanese remarks—which left us wondering what her political priorities were—she at present is locking horns with her country’s left-wing camp, determined to implement the following measures:

　　　① Indefinitely postpone the US transfer of war-time operational
control to South Korea;

　　　② Illegalize the powerful Korean Teachers and Educational Workers
Labor Union (KTU);

　　　③ Revise South Korean school text books; and,

　　　④ Disband the radically left-leaning United Progressive Party (UPP).

　　　As regards point ①, the US-South Korea Combined Forces Command　will cope with any conflict instigated by North Korea with operational control maintained by the US forces in South Korea at present. But the late President Roh Moo-hyung had demanded that operational control be returned to South Korea by 2012, as he desired to restrict the role the US forces would play.

　　　Gravely concerned about the possibility of such an arrangement creating a situation favorable to the North, President Lee Myung-bak managed to have President Barak Obama agree in Washington in 2010 to postpone transfer of wartime operational control to South Korea until 2015. His successor, President Park, has subsequently asked that the US forces assume joint operational control even beyond 2015.

Opposition’s Aim: Disbanding the National Intelligence Service

　　　Point ② calls for the illegalization of the KTU, which is even more fiercely left-leaning than its Japanese counterpart—the Japan Teachers Union. The KTU refuses to recognize the constitution of the Republic of Korea—or even its birth as a nation state—and is notorious for teaching pupils anti-nationalist historical views favoring North Korea.  

　　　As for point ③, the purpose is to revise history textbooks that depict former President Park Chung-hee as a devil while lauding Kim Il-sung’s struggle against Japan as heroic.  

　　　The UPP in point ④ refers to a minor but ferociously left-wing opposition party to which lawmaker Lee Seok-Ki belongs. A member of a pro-Pyongyang underground revolutionary organization, Lee was arrested last September 5th when the National Intelligence Service (NIS) discovered he had plotted to attack an army munitions depot and steal weapons in the event of war between the two Koreas, working on concrete revolutionary plans—such as which government organizations should be occupied. President Park has quite naturally set out to illegalize this party as a first step of her fight against her nation’s left-wing camp.

　　　The Democratic Party—South Korea’s no. 1 opposition Party—has launched a fierce counterattack against President Park. The left-wing camp opened its attack on Park by first questioning her legitimacy as head of state, claiming that the presidential election in December 2012 was illegal because of the NIS’s alleged “political interference.”

　　　With this allegation, the opposition camp refers to the NIS’s decision to declassify a transcript of a 2007 summit between Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il shortly before the 2012 election. The minutes showed Roh as head of the Democratic Party demonstrating subservience to Kim throughout the summit, as if he was ready to turn over the whole of South Korea. This revelation was claimed by the opposition to have reinforced support for Park who ran on a Saenuri Party ticket.

　　　The Democratic Party, occupying 127 of the parliament’s 300 seats, is a political entity that has succeeded the left-leaning policies advocated by former presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. In point of fact, 21 of its law-makers have previous arrests for violating the nation’s Anti-Communist Law or National Security Law. There is no question that they are hot-blooded left-wing politicians. It would be fair to say that they belong to a force that values the North over the South, tenaciously making efforts to realize Korean reunification on the North’s terms—as was seen in the policies pursued by Kim (Dae-jun) and Roh. Mr. Hong identifies the opposition party’s immediate objective as disbanding the NIS, observing:

　　　“The NIS is the only conservative national organization left intact, except for the army. On December 13th, South Korea’s National Assembly set up a committee called ‘The Special Committee on Institutional Reform for Political Neutrality of State Organizations.’ The organizations referred to included the NIS. Committee members are evenly divided between the government and the opposition parties. But of all things, the chairmanship went to the Democratic Party. And the committee now plans to tighten control over the NIS and the army’s cyber warfare command. By intensifying penalties for political involvement on the part of the employees of both organizations, who are government workers, the committee is trying to encourage whistle-blowing from the inside.”

　　　Prevention of involvement in politics on the part of government employees, as well as protection of whistle-blowers, are both among the basic rules of any democracy. However, one cannot simply take the assertions by the Democratic Party at face value. After all, as mentioned earlier, 21 of its law-makers are militant left-wingers—North Korean sympathizers who have records of previous arrests.

Time for Closer Cooperation among Japan, the US, and South Korea

　　　Some appalling cases of judiciary irregularities in South Korea attest to the extent to which North Korean elements have managed to infiltrate into the core of the Seoul government. In April 1973, Kim Il-sung instructed his anti-South operatives to select promising young students from among South Korean anti-government demonstrators and finance their future schooling. Kim’s objective was obvious: he decreed that those students be supported financially with the North’s money so they could study law at the university level to become judges, prosecutors, and lawyers. The rapid succession of often ridiculous and hard-to-understand judgments is seen as the result of the leftist transformation of the South Korean legal system.

　　　Hong points out that under such circumstances, only the NIS and the South Korean armed forces are capable of grappling squarely with North Korean elements, noting:

　　　“The critical question is to what extent President Park and her party recognize the harsh reality faced by present-day South Korea. If they really were aware of the seriousness of the conditions today, I don’t think they would have been so casual about relinquishing the post of chairman of the government committee to the Democratic Party.”

　　　Cho Gap-jae, former editor-in-chief of The Monthly Chosun published by The Chosun Ilbo, warns that the National Assembly is an extremely dangerous place for President Park, explaining:

　　　“The National Assembly is where left-leaning law-makers with records of arrests for violating the National Security Law are operating freely. I bet they naturally feel inclined to someday dispose of her. Her father, former President Park Chung-hee, was assassinated by the chief of his intelligence service. People in power are often put to death by those surrounding them. The political situation in present-day Korea has become so strained that one has to constantly guard himself against any such danger.”

　　　Hong adds his point:

　　　“Jang Sung-taek, Kim Jong-un’s guardian and North Korea’s no. 2 man, was purged because he was overconfident. President Park, as well as the Saenuri Party, must fully come to grips with the fact that South Korea today is truly at the end of its tether under the force of North Korea’s influence, and that relinquishing leadership to the pro-North elements in the National Assembly could very well mean a loss of the South to the North altogether.”

　　　Hong stresses now is the time for President Park to shun over-confidence, optimism, and emotionalism, seeking powerful support from Japan and the US. That will prove to be a choice that makes a lot of sense for Japan, too. In its national interests, Japan would surely find a South Korea unified with the North on the South’s own terms, independent from Beijng, preferable to a South Korea annexed by the North and put under Chinese rule. One would like President Park to bear in mind that now is the time to promote genuine tripartite cooperation among Japan, the US, and South Korea—taking into consideration the national interests of both South Korea and Japan, rather than being obsessed by excessive emotionalism pertaining to our mutual history.

(Translated from “Renaissance Japan” column no. 587 in the December 19, 2013 issue of The Weekly Shincho)