Kim’s uncle suddenly relevant after four decades abroad

Bloomberg

For about as long as North Korea has existed, Kim Pyong Il has been considered a possible successor to the throne. And now, with his nephew Kim Jong-un’s health status unclear, his name is being bandied about again.
Kim Pyong Il, 65, is the last known surviving son of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. After losing out in the 1970s to his half-brother, Kim Jong Il — who ended up running the country from 1994 to 2011 — Kim Pyong Il spent about four decades overseas in diplomatic posts including in Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland, Poland and the Czech Republic before returning to Pyongyang last year.
Although Kim Pyong Il has been effectively sidelined — he was largely purged from state media and never developed enough power back home to mount a serious challenge for leadership — some North Korea watchers say he could end up taking over from the 36-year-old Kim Jong-un, who hasn’t named a successor. This is mainly because he has Kim blood, and he’s a man.
The conservative male leaders in Pyongyang would resist giving power to Kim Yo Jong — Kim Jong-un’s younger sister who has been by his side helping to make policy the past few years — according to Thae Yong Ho, who was North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UK before he defected to South Korea in 2016. That’s due to her gender and relative young at 30.
“The problem is that a Kim Yo Jong-led North Korea is
unlikely to be sustainable,” Thae said, warning that collective leadership with her as the figurehead could lead to chaos. “To avoid this, some in the leadership would try to bring back Kim Pyong Il, who’s now under house arrest, to the centre of the power.”
Others don’t think Kim Pyong Il has a chance. South Korean ruling party lawmaker Kim Byeong-ki, a member of parliament’s intelligence committee, said on social media that there was no indication he could possibly succeed Kim Jong-un if
the leader were incapacitated: “I laugh off these theories.”
North Korea has often exiled those who fall out of favour, sending them aboard in attempts to erase their influence, but also providing a financial lifeline that keeps them dependent on Pyongyang’s rulers.
If Kim Pyong Il took power, it could put a great number of the current top leadership in jeopardy after they spent decades working to suppress his influence. When Kim Jong-un took power after his father’s death in 2011, he soon eliminated potential rivals: He executed his uncle and deputy, Jang Song Thaek, and was suspected to have ordered the assassination of his exiled older half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, in Malaysia.
The fact that Kim Pyong Il survived the purges in the ruling family may indicate that Kim Jong-un never saw him as a credible rival, keeping him in the foreign service and at arm’s length for years. In 2015, he was named North Korea’s ambassador to the Czech Republic and was given extra protection in 2017 when Kim Jong Nam was murdered.