All that's known is that South Korea's National Intelligence Service is briefing a few members of the National Assembly and the South Korean media on what are seen as sure signs that the 26-year-old Kim Jong-Un, who is Swiss-educated, fluent in three languages (English, German and Swiss-German) beside Korean and has no known "revolutionary" qualifications, is favored to take over whenever his father departs this world.
The signs appear incontrovertible that another dynastic succession is underway in the only communist country where such would be conceivable. Schoolchildren are singing a new song dedicated to Kim Jong-Un. Officials, including diplomats overseas, are pledging fealty to him, and people are referring to him as "commander" Ñ a title that may reflect the post of "inspector" of the armed forces to which he was appointed in early April.
It is assumed South Korean intelligence operatives got this information from their own sources inside North Korea, possibly from defectors. The next step will be for North Korea's state media to carry an announcement that Kim Jong-Un is really the man Ñ that he's been given a high post, possibly as member of the National Defense Commission, the center of power which is chaired by his father.
Nobody knows when to expect the announcement, but it could come at this autumn's convention of the ruling Workers' Party, of which Kim Jong-Il is general secretary. The party, however, is not exactly the center of power, and Kim Jong-Un will need to prove himself before the generals under the wing of the defense commission if he is to rule effectively.
Next step, in the view of Pyongyang watchers, will be the inevitable mythologizing Ñ heroic tales of his victory over evil, his struggles from a rude upbringing, his revolutionary prowess Ñ anything to convince the people around him that he's got what it takes. The military men may know better, but most North Koreans will have to accept tall tales to match the myths surrounding his father.
That's where the possibility lies for a tug-of-war that could at its worst bring about not just instability and mayhem but also a far tougher line than that already pursued by Kim Jong-Il. It's difficult for many observers to believe that the generals who control North Korea's 1.1-million-man military establishment will want to lick the boots of a young man schooled for a life of privilege, without a day's military experience.
"I'm very much confused," said Kim Tae-Woo, senior North Korean expert at the Korean Institute for Defense Analyses. "Even though Kim Jong-Un could be a favorite, I don't believe it." The disbelief is understandable considering that Kim Jong-Un is overweight, as was his father before his stroke, and is said to look quite like his father.
The need to convince North Koreans that Kim Jong-Un is next in line is believed to be a major reason why Kim Jong-Il ordered the launch of a long-range Taepodong-2 missile on April 5, the underground nuclear test of May 25 and probably the launch of two more long-range missiles in the near future.
Recovering from the stroke that he suffered last August, suffering from diabetes, and clearly a thinning image of his former pudgy self, Kim Jong-Il at 67 senses that his days are short and he'd better work out who's coming after him before he runs out of time.
Ideally, Kim Jong-Il would like to hang on until 2012, when North Korea celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-Sung, who ruled for nearly half a century before his death in July 1994. Power automatically went to Kim Jong-Il, who had spent years in training as chief of the armed forces and then chairman of the defense commission, the center of power.
Unlike his father, however, Kim Jong-Un has no such background and will have to undergo rapid indoctrination if he is to be able to put on even a show of leadership. Regardless, he's expected to rule as a figurehead over a kind of collective in which his uncle, Jang Song-Taek, now North Korea's second-most powerful leader, rules as a regent. Jang is the brother of Ko Yong-hi, Kim Jong-Il's third wife, who died of cancer several years ago.
Kim Jong-Il appears to have decided on the youngest son after concluding that his two older brothers, including Ko Yong-Hi's other son, Kim Jong-Chul, were seriously lacking.
The eldest, Kim Jong-Nam, is reputedly a heavy drinker and womanizer who embarrassed his father when in 2001 Japanese immigration officials at Narita Airport outside Tokyo discovered he was carrying a Dominican passport. They let him go on to Beijing and then North Korea after he explained that he had wanted to stop off in Japan to take his family to Disneyland.
The second son, Kim Jong-Chul, is believed to have impressed his father as being too "effeminate" to deal with the hardened military leaders with whom he would be in daily contact Ñ though he did appear to have an inside track a few years ago.
It's easy to imagine factional infighting inside North Korea's ruling elite, estimated at about 200,000 people in a country with a population of 24 million. The fact is, however, that there has been no inside information bearing out the hypothesis of serious disputes, much less backstage armed conflict.
The fear of such conflict, though, is assumed to be one reason why China has been reluctant to pressure Kim Jong-Il to knock off the muscle-flexing and join the real world in pursuit of whatever is needed to jump-start the economy.
China supported the United Nations Security Council's condemnation of North Korea's long-range missile test but is not enthusiastic about strengthening sanctions imposed after the first underground nuclear test in October 2006 or, for that matter, in enforcing the sanctions by cutting off the export to North Korea of critical products, including spare parts for weapons.
China fears unrest that could send hundreds of thousands of North Koreans fleeing across the Yalu River border on the west and the Tumen River border on the east. China routinely returns those whom it catches to North Korea, where they are often punished severely with beatings, prison terms and, in some cases, execution.
There is, however, a bright side in the succession issue. That is that conceivably North Korea will halt what U.S. President Barack Obama has labeled as "provocative" acts, including the nuclear and missile tests, when the succession to power is settled.
Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, quoted a U.S. official predicting that the North Koreans "are likely to come back to the bargaining table, especially now that it appears that the succession has been secured". The question, however, is what bargaining table? North Korea has said it will "never" return to six-party talks and has, at least rhetorically, renounced the armistice that ended the Korean War in July 1953.
North Korea is believed now to want two-way dialogue with the United States. The reward would be for the U.S. to recognize the North as a nuclear power and then be willing to negotiate a quid pro quo for the North's return to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, from which it withdrew in 2003, in return for vast quantities of aid, as promised in the Geneva agreement of 1994 and the six-party agreements of 2007.
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