North Korea will collapse, says Kim Jong-un's brother

THE BROTHER of North Korea’s new ruler Kim Jong-un has called his leadership a “joke” and said the regime is doomed to collapse. Kim Jong-nam, who lives in exile in China, gave his verdict in a new book by a Japanese journalist.
 
My Father Kim Jong-Il and Me was written by Yoji Gomi, a staff writer at the Tokyo Shimbun, and is based on interviews and seven years of emails. Gomi also makes the intriguing claim that Jong-nam could one day rule the Communist state.
 
It was thought that Kim Jong-nam - a self-confessed playboy - angered his father Kim Jong-il after being caught trying to enter Japan on forged documents just to go to Disneyland. However, he tells Gomi that he was frozen out because he tried to persuade the Dear Leader, who died last month, to begin reforms.
 
Kim Jong-nam insists he had a good relationship with Kim Jong-Il. "My father felt very lonely after sending me to study abroad [in Switzerland],” he says. Even after his exile, Kim Jong-il would phone his son on his birthday.
 
Jong-nam’s opinion of his younger brother’s fledgling administration would therefore appear to hold some weight. In extracts of the new book published by The Chosun Ilbo, he says: "I'm concerned how Jong-un, who merely resembles my grandfather [Kim Il-sung], will be able to satisfy the needs of North Koreans. Kim Jong-un is still just a nominal figure and the members of the power elite will be the ones in actual power."
 
Jong-nam suggests Jong-un has only become leader by accident. Kim Jong-il, he claims, had intended to end the hereditary transfer of power, but ultimately plumped for Jong-un because he could see no other way of maintaining stability in North Korea.

China - North Korea’s biggest ally - disapproves of the situation. "Rather than welcoming the hereditary succession, China is merely acknowledging it for the sake of maintaining stability,” says Jong-nam. “The dynastic succession is a joke to the outside world."
 
Jong-nam already thinks Jong-un’s regime is on borrowed time and suggests there could be a military coup. "The Kim Jong-un regime will not last long," he says. "Without reforms, North Korea will collapse, and when such changes take place, the regime will collapse."

According to AFP, Gomi believes China has a plan for this eventuality. "[Jong-nam] has been protected by the Chinese side," he says. "If the Jong-Un regime collapses, [Beijing] appears to be planning to send him to Pyongyang and make him become the next leader." ·