Kim’s Alive! South Korea says despot Jong-un is NOT dead

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North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is ‘alive and well’, a South Korean official has said.

Foreign policy adviser Chung-in Moon said the South Korean government’s position is firmly that the despot is not dead.

The aide said Kim had been living in the Wonsan area of the country since April 13, adding to Fox: ‘No suspicious movements have so far been detected.’

Rumours of his death emerged from the vice director of Hong Kong Satellite Television Shijian Xingzou, who claimed a ‘very solid source’ told her Kim was dead.

She has 15million followers on Chinese social media Weibo, and is also the niece of one of the country’s foreign ministers.

Separately, a Japanese media outlet claimed Kim was in a ‘vegetative state’ after he underwent heart surgery earlier in the month.

The despot has not been seen publicly since April 11 when he led a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party committee of policy makers, North Korean state media said.

But Chung-in Moon’s comments appear to have poured cold water on the astonishing claims that he had passed away.   

North Korea has never said who would succeed Kim if he died, but analysts believe his sister Kim Yo-Jong would likely take over until his children grow up.

The dictator’s 250-metre-long train has been seen near his Wonsan holiday complex on satellite images as recently as April 23, according to news website 38North.

It was parked at a station reserved for the Kim family. The website said although the dictator’s whereabouts remain unknown, the trains position suggests he has visited the resort.

The most recent photos, from April 23, show the train preparing for departure.

Kim’s private jet, frequently used for trips to Wonsan, remains on the runway in Pyongyang, South Korean broadcaster SBS reported.

The Wonsan complex includes nine large guesthouses and recreation centre, as well as a shooting range and covered dock believed to be for a yacht.

At the centre of the grounds is a large building that was constructed shortly after Kim Jong-un came to power in 2014.     

US Senator Lindsey Graham added to speculation of his death, telling Fox News last night he believes reports on the leader’s health.

He said: ‘Well, it’s a closed society, I don’t know anything directly. But I’d be shocked if he’s not dead or in some incapacitated state because you don’t let rumours like this go forever or go unanswered in a closed society, which is really a cult, not a country, called North Korea.

‘So I pretty well believe he is dead or incapacitated.

‘And I hope the long-suffering North Korean people will get some relief if he is dead, and President Trump’s willing to do business with North Korea in a win-win fashion.

‘So, if this guy is dead, I hope the next person who takes over will work with President Trump to make North Korea a better place for everybody.’

Senator Graham has regularly made comments on the state of North Korea’s regime and is seen as an influential policy adviser to President Trump.

He has praised the President’s handling of the North Korea crisis and decision to hold talks aimed at denuclearising the peninsula.

Graham’s declarations followed the news that Kim Jon-Un had failed to appear for a national holiday – Military Foundation Day – on Saturday.

Despite the suspect absence, a senior Pentagon official said US intelligence had found no sign of unusual military activity in North Korea that would suggest something was awry.

An anonymous source told Newsweek: ‘Regional militarizes in the Western Pacific and Asia, including those of our partner nations, remain at readiness levels consistent with historical norms.

‘We have observed no indications or received any additional information to make a conclusive assessment on the status of North Korean leadership or health of Kim Jong-un.’

The official said the Pentagon continues to monitor the situation very closely, but also remarked speculations surrounding Kim’s health may not be completely unfounded.

Citing the presence of the dictator’s train at his Wonsan compound and his uncharacteristic failure to attend two major national events, the official claimed there is ‘certainly credibility to report that [Kim] is either in a serious health condition or potentially deceased.

The official added: ‘Since he is perceived as a deity in NK, his death would instantly trigger nationwide indications, so there is potential that the government had delayed an announcement in order to have everything in place to maintain security across the country.’ 

Chung-in Moon was not the only one to downplay speculation about his death.

US President Donald Trump also downplayed reports Kim was gravely ill on April 23.

‘I think the report was incorrect,’ Trump told reporters, but he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.

‘We have a good relationship with North Korea, I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un, and I hope he’s okay. And I think it was a fake report,’ he said.

When asked about Kim’s health on Fox News after Trump spoke, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, ‘I don’t have anything I can share with you tonight, but the American people should know we’re watching the situation very keenly.’

On April 24, a South Korean source told Reuters their intelligence was Kim was alive and would likely make an appearance soon.

The person said he did not have any comment on Kim’s current condition or any Chinese involvement.

An official familiar with US intelligence said Kim was known to have health problems but they had no reason to conclude he was seriously ill or unable eventually to reappear in public.

North Korean defectors have also poured cold water over the rumours, saying it is hard to believe the information would be leaked by his trusted aides.

Joo Sung-ha, a North Korean defector turned journalist, said in a Facebook post reported by the New York Times that it was reasonable to believe Kim had health problems, but that he had zero trust in reports why the leader has faced a medical emergency. ‘The health of the Kim family is the secret among secrets,’ he said. 

Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who also defected, said it was hard to believe any reliable information about Kim had been leaked by his most trusted aids.

He said while he worked in the country no one was aware of Kim Jong-il’s death until 2011, when they gathered in an auditorium and saw an announcer dressed in black.

China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

A report by the weekly Shukan Gendai  in Japan claimed on April 24 North Korea’s dictator is in a ‘vegetative state’ after having heart surgery earlier in the month. 

The outlet cited a Chinese medic who is believed to have been sent as part of the team to treat Kim Jong Un after a delay in a simple heart procedure had left the leader severely ill.

The source cited by the news outlet claimed Jong-un was visiting the countryside when he clutched his chest and fell to the ground.

A doctor with him at the time is said to have  performed CPR and accompanied him to a hospital.

However, the reporting of the deaths of previous North Korean leaders has taken time to emerge officially.

Kim Jong-il, the current leader’s father, died of a heart attack while travelling by train two days before it was announced publicly.

North Korea has never announced who would succeed Kim Jong Un in the event he is incapacitated and with no details known about his young children, analysts say his sister and loyalists could form a regency until a successor is old enough to take over.

Each change at the top in North Korea has raised the prospect of a leadership vacuum or collapse of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled the country since its founding in 1948.

So far, each of the three Kims to rule North Korea has defied expectations, holding on to power with an iron grip. But under Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles has grown substantially, raising concerns over who would control them.

In the event of any leadership transition, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister Kim Yo Jong is likely to play a central part.

In the past two years, Yo Jong has risen quickly through North Korea’s leadership hierarchy, serving officially as a vice director of the Workers’ Party’s powerful Central Committee, but also unofficially as her brother’s chief of staff.

Kim Yo Jong, who is believed to be 31, has a firm control of key party functions, setting herself to be the main source of power behind a collective leadership. She has regularly been observed at her brother’s side, leading South Korean Media to dub her the ‘Ivanka Trump of North Korea’.

‘Kim Yo Jong will be for the time being the main power base with control of the organisation and guidance department, the judiciary and public security,’ said Cho Han-bum of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think-tank in Seoul.

Still, relatively little is known of of Kim Yo Jong. The dictator’s younger sibling has routinely kept a low profile, having only made her first public statement last month, in which she mocked South Korea as being a ‘frightening dog barking’, for opposing a live-fire military demonstration.

But sources say Yo Jong’s work behind the scenes suggests she would rule with the same iron-fist as her predecessors, should she be announced leader, temporarily or otherwise.

Along with several other North Korean officials, Kim Yo Jong was blacklisted by the US Treasury Department for ‘severe human rights abuses’ in 2017.

She also incurred a reputation for her aggressive propaganda pushing, regarded a one of the main officials who worked to enact ‘rigid censorship policies and conceals its inhumane and oppressive behavior’.

‘Among the North’s power elite, Kim Yo Jong has the highest chance to inherit power, and I think that possibility is more than 90 per cent,’ an analyst said.

Yo Jong first began working in the ruling party in 2007, but in the last few years she has ‘gotten a lot more serious’ about the role she’s playing, government consultant Michael Madden told the New Yorker.

‘When you see footage of her on the receiving lines, she is smiling, a nice friendly young woman, but when she is out of those lines, the smile vanishes and she even looks like Kim Jong Il,’ Madden remarked.

Should she be announced as ruler, Yo Jong would become North Korea’s first female leader since her Grandfather Kim Il-Sung founded the nation in 1948.   

In the event of Kim Jong Un’s death, party Elders Choe Ryong Hae and Pak Pong Ju would likely find themselves at Yo Jong’s side, helping to weather any leadership storm.

Ryong Hae was announced as North Korea’s nominal head of state last when he rose to become president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, following decades of service within the party for the ruing Kim family.

Choe and Pak Pong Ju, a fellow politburo member and former state premier who oversaw the North’s push to introduce more free-market functions to revive its economy, are likely to be the figureheads leading a collective leadership, analysts say.

Unlikely to emerge as a major presence is Kim Jong Un’s estranged older brother, Kim Jong Chol, who has not been a part of the country’s leadership instead opting for a quite life away from politics playing music.

Though according to North Korea’s former deputy ambassador in London, who has since defected to the South, Jong Chol does maintain ties with his siblings and could play a more public role in any contingency plans. 

Kim Jong Un is believed to have three children with Ri Sol Ju, the youngest born in 2017, according to the South’s National Intelligence Service.

The oldest is a 10-year-old son, meaning any of the three would need the assistance of their relatives or political guardians if they were to become a fourth-generation hereditary leader.

Kim Jong Il had been groomed for 20 years to lead the country, while Kim Jong Un had just over a year to prepare, due to his father’s sudden death from a heart attack.

Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, said: ‘Kim Yo Jong is unlikely to take over the helm but could help build a caretaker regime as a power broker until the kids grow up, and Kim Jong Chol might return to help for a while.’

This is not the first time Kim has disappeared from the public eye. 

In 2014, Kim was not seen for 40 days, before he reemerged appearing to walk with a limp and using a cane, after he reportedly suffered from an ankle problem.

His father, Kim Jong-il, disappeared from view for months in 2008, prompting speculation that he had a stroke. A French doctor later confirmed the reports, and the then leader died three years later.

But North Korea’s ruling elite have vanished from the spotlight before prompting rumors of their death only to re-emerge seemingly unscathed.

In 2015 it was claimed by a North Korean defector that Kim ordered his own aunt to be killed by poison. The aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, re-appeared smiling in January.

While there is no official proof of the dictator’s death, the hashtag #KimJongUndead was trending on twitter on Friday following the report.

A delegation led by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department left Beijing for North Korea on Thursday, two of the people said. The department is the main Chinese body dealing with neighbouring North Korea.

The sources declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

The Liaison Department could not be reached by Reuters for comment late on Friday. China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Friday.

Daily NK, a Seoul-based website, reported earlier this week that Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12. It cited one unnamed source in North Korea.

South Korean government officials and a Chinese official with the Liaison Department challenged subsequent reports suggesting that Kim was in grave danger after surgery. South Korean officials said they had detected no signs of unusual activity in North Korea. 

North Korea is one of the world’s most isolated and secretive countries, and the health of its leaders is treated as a matter of state security. Reuters has not been able to independently confirm any details on Kim’s whereabouts or condition.

North Korea’s state media last reported on Kim’s whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11. State media did not report that he was in attendance at an event to mark the birthday of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15, an important anniversary in North Korea.

Kim, believed to be 36, has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before.

In 2014, he vanished for more than a month and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.

Speculation about his health has been fanned by his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of cardiovascular problems.

When Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, suffered a stroke in 2008, South Korean media reported at the time that Chinese doctors were involved in his treatment along with French physicians.

Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping made the first state visit in 14 years by a Chinese leader to North Korea, an impoverished state that depends on Beijing for economic and diplomatic support.

China is North Korea’s chief ally and the economic lifeline for a country hard-hit by U.N. sanctions, and has a keen interest in the stability of the country with which it shares a long, porous border.

Kim is a third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father Kim Jong Il died in 2011 from a heart attack. He has visited China four times since 2018.

Trump held unprecedented summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019 as part of a bid to persuade him to give up North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. 

EXCLUSIVE: Kim Jong-un sees himself as the North Korean John F. Kennedy and ‘groomed’ his wife Ri Sol Ju to be as fashionable and well mannered as Jackie, claims new book on the despot as questions swirl about his health 

One was a beacon of optimism in post-WWII America, the other presides over a brutal Communist regime set on building a nuclear weapon.

But despite the differences, Kim Jong-un believes he is living in his own version of Camelot, the youthful world of John F. Kennedy.

A new book claims that the leader of North Korea sees himself as Kennedy and his wife Ri Sol Ju, with her impeccable manners and fashionable wardrobe, as the parallel of Jackie Kennedy.

Kim ‘literally and figuratively groomed’ Ri so she would look the part of First Lady, writes former CIA analyst Jung H. Pak.

She says that Kim made Ri a ‘walking advertisement’ for his image of North Korea as a modern, prosperous country with water parks and ski parks to reinforce that vision.

Her book ‘Becoming Kim Jong-un: A Former CIA Officer’s Insights into North Korea’s Enigmatic Young Dictator‘ is out next week at a time of intense speculation over Kim’s health.

Recent reports claimed that the 36-year-old was seriously ill after a heart procedure, speculation that was fanned when he failed to show up for the anniversary of North Korea’s founding father Kim Il Sung, Kim’s grandfather, on April 15.

Some reports have said that Kim Yo-jong, Kim’s sister, could be ready to take over from him if he dies.

But that glosses over the importance of Ri in Kim’s image of himself, writes Pak.

Having carried out dozens of bloody purges of his regime, Kim is only too aware of the jockeying for position within the North Korean elite.

So Ri’s elevation may be a ‘deliberate attempt to fend off any challengers’ to his succession.

The couple have at least one child – former NBA star Dennis Rodman held one baby of theirs on a trip to Pyongyang – but they are thought to have two more.

Even in his 30s Kim is ‘planning for the long haul and plotting a strategy for the duration of not just his life, but his children’s life as well’.

The comparison between the Kims and the Kennedys on the face of it seems unlikely.

The Kennedys are Massachusetts-based Democratic political dynasty while Kim’s grandfather was a nationalist guerrilla who founded the hermit nation after being hand picked by the Soviets.

Becoming Kim Jong-un says that the parallel lies in how both of them project the image they want their country to be.

In the case of North Korea, Kim wanted to construct an ‘alternate reality’ from the truth, which is that hundreds of thousands of people are locked in gulags and labor camps.

Kim went on a building spree of amusement parks and luxury resorts to lure in Chinese tourists and distract from the repression and the poverty which makes up daily life in North Korea.

John Park, a North Korea expert at Harvard University, said: ‘There’s this idea of a North Korean dream and Kim Jong-un being the creator of this dream and his wife being essentially the face of this dream.

‘This type of dynamic is sort of an analogy for the future of North Korea overall’.

Nowhere is this more the case than Ri, who like Jackie Kennedy came from the elite of her society.

Ri was a former cheerleader and a member of the Unhasu Orchestra, an elite troupe handpicked by the state for their looks, loyalty and talent.

She was introduced to the world seven months after Kim took power in 2011 when she was seen with him at a concert.

From ‘Comrade Ri’ she soon became ‘Respected First Lady’ as she appeared by Kim’s side more often.

What was surprising was her Western clothes and her appearance which was a striking departure from past practices.

Kim’s grandfather railed against make-up and ‘pretty dresses’ and under his rule it was illegal for women to wear trousers when not at work.

Ri by contrast wore on her first appearance a bright green blouse with a fitted skirt and peep toe black pumps – the Huffington Post gushed: ‘She is stylist indeed!’

On another occasion watching a flight contest with officers of the Korean People’s Air Force her hair was partly rolled back, her lipstick was a tasteful muted pink shade and she was wearing a blue dress and three quarter length suit with a sparkly brooch.

In a sea of men wearing suits her colorful attire was a ‘dramatic contrast’.

According to Pak, Ri was ‘channeling Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge’ and ‘evoking the storied elegance of Jackie Kennedy’.

Kim was ‘literally and figuratively grooming her to be Pyongang’s First Lady’, the book says.

Ri’s diplomatic debut was on March 5, 2018 hosting the South Korean delegation to set up the first inter-Korean summit which would occur a month later.

South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong committed a major faux pas over dinner when he asked Kim: ‘Low about you stopped smoking? It’s bad for your health

The table froze as no one criticized Kim but Ri clapped her hands and said: ‘I always ask him to quit smoking but he won’t listen to me’.

She defused the tension immediately and both parties moved on.

Ri went to Beijing to meet with President Xi in March 2018 and subsequent trips to China.

Chinese and South Korean media were ablaze about her outfit and Chinese Internet users fawned over her so much the Communist party censored them because they were making President Xi’s wife look bad.

Ri was with her husband for the inter-Korean summit the following month which laid the groundwork for Kim’s historic meeting with Donald Trump, a sign of how vital she is to her husband.

Pak writes that Kim sees Ri as ‘another component of his power’ and she has ‘personified the charm in the North Korean charm offensive’.

Ri is somebody who ‘provides the regime with a softer side, a thin veneer of style and good humor to mask the brutality, starvation and deprivation endured by the people’

Like Jackie Kennedy, Ri is a ‘glamorous and devoted wife’ and a ‘glimpse of an emerging material and consumer culture which Kim seems to be actively promoting’.

Through her he has an ‘opportunity to channel the consumerist energies of the North Korean people’, the book says.

In that sense at least, she is more like Jackie Kennedy than you might think.