North Korea Clears Way for a Third-Generation Kim
01 October 2010
A worker in Paju, South Korea, looks at a picture of North Korea's Kim Jong Un on a TV news show. Experts say Kim Jong Il could be preparing his third and youngest son for leadership.
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
Little is known inside or outside North Korea about the young man who could become the next leader. Kim Jong Un studied in Switzerland but even his age is a mystery. He is around twenty-seven, the youngest of the three known sons of Kim Jong Il. The North Korean leader is sixty-eight and believed to be in poor health.
This week, North Korea published the first official photo of Kim Jong Un after a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party. Some observers had expected him to be named as the country's next leader.
But Korea expert Gordon Flake at the Mansfield Foundation in Washington says the process is not that simple.
GORDON FLAKE: "What we're seeing here is not the succession. What we're seeing here is the first public indications of the beginning of the process of potential succession. But Kim Jong Il is still in power. And so this really is not an institutional rule. This is a personal family rule."
Kim Jong Il came to power after his father, North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung, died in nineteen ninety-four.
This week, Kim Jong Un and his aunt, the sister of Kim Jong Il, became four-star generals with little military experience. State media later announced the appointment of Kim Jong Un to the Workers' Party Central Committee.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25