Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com

On the day before Jang Song-Thaek’s execution, his wife, Kim Kyong-Hui, divorced him.

The man whom she had met when they were both students at Kim Il-Sung University, he a charmer who played the accordion at parties, she the daughter of the Great Leader Kim Il-Sung, had deserted her probably around the time of their daughter’s suicide while a student in Paris.

Once an alcoholic, and said to be suffering from a liver disease, Kim Kyong-Hui may not have wanted him dead but may have been glad to get rid of the man accused, among many other crimes, of having led a “dissolute, depraved life.” If she had not encouraged his demise, at least she had no reason to beg mercy for him.

The indictment, however, says more about the North Korean regime than it does about Jang. Long before he was executed, he had signaled what he thought of his boss.

Why join in silly wild applause over the election of Kim Jong-un to some Workers’ Party position when the young new leader knew little about the country’s core problems? And why have the kid’s meaningless remarks on a field trip to a tile factory been carved in stone and placed on prominent display when the gesture was a complete waste of time and money?

Those slurs, as intimated in the statement of Jang’s crimes, all indicate the much more serious nonsense that Jang saw was happening. By going to such lengths to publicize Jang’s sins, the regime offers the best exposé possible of its internal problems.

It’s all there — defrauding construction projects, selling coal and precious resources, profiting off a land deal, messing up the economy with a disastrous reform program four years ago, stealing from a bank. Jang’s crimes ranged from plotting a coup to indulging a lust for pornography to gambling and probably much more.

The C words, “chaos,” “catastrophe” and “collapse,” also “coup,” which Jang was accused of conspiring to create, figure in the indictment. It’s what one might expect in a report on the malfeasance of some titan of finance in a capitalist society, not in a country that goes to incredible lengths to hide problems.

You can picture this man having a great time as he ran his network of state trading companies, but there’s no way to prove anything. Jang is “not only a scapegoat,” says Bruce Klinger of the Heritage Foundation. “He’s blamed not only for the current state of the economy but for the future.”

But how did Jang come under such scrutiny? Bruce Bechtol, author of “Defiant Failed State,” believes the arch-villain was Choe Ryong-Hye, political director of the armed forces, a four-star general, who has little real military background but long experience in undermining rivals.

“He is a guy whom Kim Jong-Un can rely on to spy on the military,” says Bechtol. “He may well have been spying on Jang.”

Choe’s ascendance was obvious when he visited Beijing last May to meet Chinese leaders. Jang might have been expected to go since he had made the journey amid much ceremony in August 2012, seeing then President Hu Jintao.

Clearly Hu’s successor, President Xi Jinping, had other ideas, as did Kim Jong-Un, who had to have rejected Jang for a return trip while sending Choe in his place. But why? Was Jang a real reformer — or pocketing too much for himself while fantasizing himself as not just an adviser to Kim Jong-Un but his surrogate and possible successor?

The answers may never be clear, but Jang’s economic success was definitely cause for envy — and suspicion.

Now North Korea is recalling managers from China who might have been close to Jang, who had to have formed an extensive network. He was so effective, says Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the U.S. Institute for Peace, that Chinese-North Korean trade increased to $6 billion in 2012. “Jang had the Midas touch,” she says. “They are trying to rip the tentacles from Jang’s network.”

Jang may well have been making a fortune. The indictment’s reference to selling “precious natural resources,” according to Kleine-Ahlbrandt, is “a clear reference to China.” His offense may have been not to have made enough from the deals — enough for the state if not for himself. The Chinese, she predicts, will go on buying North Korean resources, albeit at higher prices.

But was Jang’s seeming interest in reform different from that of the regime in which he once had such influence? ”Was Jang a reformer?” asks Bechtol. “He did what he had to do to survive” — until jealous rivals, unhappy with his success, destroyed him.

Will anything change? “North Korean economic development is advancing thanks to relations with China,” says Kleine-Ahlbrandt. “North Korea will continue to engage with reforms that are not real reforms.”

Columnist Donald Kirk has visited North Korea a number of times but still has no real idea who’s doing what to whom up there. He’s at kirkdon@yahoo.com.

  Choe Ryong-Hye, Jang Song-Thaek, Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Un, Kim Kyong-Hui, N. Korean indictment of ‘man with the Midas touch’ revealed instead a dissolute regime