The recent death of Kim Jong Il, dictator of North Korea since the death of his own father Kim Il Sung, sees the transition of political power into the hands of his son, Kim Jong Un. In the months leading up to the death of North Korea's "Dear Leader", Un had been slowly handed over the reigns of government through a series of small military promotions. Consistent with his family legacy, very little is known about Kim Jong Un. Even the year of his birth remains a mystery to outside governments, whose few insights into the pariah that is North Korea comes from either heavily skewed state reports or a handful of political defectors who manage to cross the 38th parallel into South Korea.
There is unlikely to be much of a change in the way the country operates under it's new leader. One of the most isolated nations in the world, North Korea has practiced it's ideology of juch'e, or self-reliance, ever since the communist regime took control of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The result has been one of the worst humanitarian crises of the modern era. What little subsistence the North Korean people rely on is trickled down from foreign aid. The average NK child is 5 inches shorter than his Southern cousins. Illegal trade and black market operations make up a substantial part of the economy. The rest is handled by a corrupt government concerned only with it's own survival.
And yet, through all this, the North Korean people hold nothing but the utmost adoration for their Dear Leader. Jong was credited with keeping the nation protected from the dangerous influnences of foreign nations and with preserving the North Korean way of life. The most isolated nation in the world, North Koreans do not have access to information about the outside world. For them, North Korea is an oasis in a world of chaos.
Historically, this is a nation that has come from a a desperate situation. The people of the Korean peninsula have been exploited throughout their history by both the Chinese dynasties and the incredibly powerful Japanese empire. When the Japanese lost control of the peninsula after the Second World War, the people were divided into two parts along the 38th parallel. The South fell under then protection of the United States; the North into the Soviet sphere. When the Cold War turned hot on the peninsula during the 1950's, it was permanently established that the South would remain under the influence of the liberal Western democracies and the North under the supervision of China and the Soviet Union. The two cultures, though one ethnicity, were split entirely in two.
Despite their corruption and brutality, the North Korean leaders are very skilled politicians. They have made themselves impossible to ignore on the global stage with their acquisition of nuclear arms (though limited in number) and their aggressive maneuvers against the Japanese and South Koreans. The bombing of the Yongoyong Islands in late 2010, in which several South Koreans lost their lives, shows the lengths to which the North will go in it's game of political brinkmanship to secure it's demands from Western powers. Unwilling to provoke China and conscious of the terrible cost of outright war on the North Korea people, the US has had no choice but to talk tough and do very little.
The Kim regime, though boisterous, is still very young and relatively weak. As China rises on the global stage, it will come to see North Korea as more of a burden than a protectorate. As the inevitable trickle of outside media comes to the nation, the inexperienced Un regime may find itself with a "Korean Spring" on it's hands. China may come to it's aid as a fellow authoritarian power, or it may allow the regime to collapse from within. In order to affect China's decisions (as they will surely be worried about the influx of refugees into their northern territories), the US should cooperate with China on opening a dialogue about Korean issues. The Six Party Talks, in which China was allowed to take the lead in negotiation, was a step in the right direction towards a US-China agreed Korean policy. By allowing China maneuverability while simultaneously strengthening our commitment to Japan and South Korea, the US may be able to cut off all aid from North Korea and allow the regime to collapse from within. When this happens, a partnership of Asian nations, along with the US, will be able to assist the North Koreans in a transition to a representative government and stabilizing a very dangerous part of the world.
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