“North Korean Regime Change”
Ralph A. Cossa
PacNet, #90
Pacific Forum CSIS
December 16, 2013

In a thought-provoking article, Ralph Cossa, who is president of the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a noted Korea expert, comes up with a whopper of a revelation for those of us who don’t follow North Korean politics on a daily basis.

Apparently, when Kim Jong-un had his uncle eliminated in a gruesome execution last December, he was doing more than settling a family score. Korea watchers had pegged Jang Song-thack as North Korea’s best hope for a transition away from poverty-stricken kleptocracy to a functional, modern state. Chinese observers were even suggesting that Jang was Korea’s Deng Xiaoping.

Cossa’s conclusion is chilling and makes the entire report worth a read. “Imagine China’s fate if the Gang of Four had prevailed. This may have been what just happened in Pyongyang.”