President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea (Reuters/Petar Kujundzic)

On Monday, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak visited Myanmar and promised to extend loans and grants to the poverty stricken country.

The surprise visit came as Japan and South Korea have stepped up their diplomatic engagement in Southeast Asia over the last month, which, in turn, comes on the heels of closer engagement by the United States since 2009.

This stems not only from a desire to gain access to the region’s natural resources but more importantly, to bolster their soft power in the Mekong region, an area that is becoming increasingly important as concerns persist about Chinese foreign policy amid the rapid modernization of the People’s Liberation Army. However, while the Mekong countries are interested in the economic and political benefits from closer relations with the United States, they are mindful of the risk of antagonizing China.

The Mekong countries include Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, even though the Mekong River begins on the Tibetan Plateau in China’s Yunnan Province where it is known as the Lancang River. The Mekong is revered by the locals and is considered the lifeblood of Southeast Asia with an estimated sixty million people dependant on it for food, water and transportation.

Lee’s visit to Myanmar, the first by a South Korean president in twenty-nine years, came after a regional summit in Thailand last week where South Korea promised to double its development aid to the Mekong region by 2015. During a summit in April, Japan pledged ¥600 billion ($7.4 billion) in aid, which was a renewal of a prior commitment of ¥500 billion that expired this year. Japan also wrote off half of the ¥500 billion ($6 billion) in debt that Myanmar owed it.

The United States jump started their engagement back in 2009 with the Lower Mekong Initiative, targeting Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam with increased development aid. Washington also began lifting sanctions on Myanmar when it adopted political reforms and held what was considered by observers a mostly free and fair election in April.

Myanmar was cut off from Western investment and international aid for the last thirty years while it was under military rule which gave China virtually free rein over the country’s resources.

The Americans have also taken more overt measures to demonstrate their presence in the region. Last month, the United States held noncombat maritime exercises with the Vietnamese navy and military maneuvers with the Philippines.

There is still tension between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal and between China and Vietnam, which have a dispute over the Paracel Islands, in addition to the other disputes with nations fronting the South China Sea.

The governments in the Mekong region are faced with a delicate balancing act. While they are open to greater engagement with the United States and their allies due to concerns over China’s rise, they are careful not to embrace them too tight and alienate the Chinese.

China’s long term security plans in the region are often vague and cloaked in secrecy. On top of the lack of transparency, China has refused to submit to a multilateral forum for negotiations with its neighbors over the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Instead, it remains firm in demanding bilateral talks, fueling suspicion that it prefers this as a way to exercise leverage over smaller countries for a more favorable outcome for itself.

Complicating matters for a negotiated outcome to these disputes is that governments have often resorted to using the issue to stoke nationalism in their countries to rally support for the government, making it harder for them to compromise now.

Given the strategic uncertainty and the fear of being bullied, Mekong countries share an interest with the United States in balancing China’s presence in the region. The Obama Administration’s much heralded Asian “pivot” is clear evidence of the importance which the Americans attach to Asia, a part of the world it has identified as strategically vital to the United States in the twenty-first century.

The administration’s dual approach is to reassure nervous allies about American staying power in Asia and to balance China’s rising power.

The distrust, lack of transparency and outstanding territorial disagreements between China and its neighbors means that relations in Southeast Asia will remain unsettled and vulnerable to flareups. Going forward, given their size and location, the Mekong countries will remain in the difficult position of trying to accommodate both sides, while staying out of what is shaping up to be a wary relationship between China and the United States.

Business leaders meet during an Asian Development Bank summit in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, May 4

In order to insulate their economies from the continuing financial uncertainty in Europe, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations along with China, Japan, and South Korea, known as ASEAN+3, announced steps last Thursday to enhance economic cooperation between Asian states.

The countries will double the size of a liquidity fund that member states can tap into to $240 billion. They also increased the quota of unconditional funds each country can access from 20 to 30 percent before triggering an International Monetary Fund program as well as an extension of the maturity of currency swaps from ninety days to twelve months.

Officials are particularly optimistic about the economic prospects for ASEAN. At the Asian Development Bank’s board of governors meeting in Manila last week, chief economist Rhee Changyong was extolling on the future of ASEAN, stating that “a new growth force is coming in Asia, one that would come to match the economic growth seen in China and India.”

Rhee’s confidence was reflective of the widespread enthusiasm over the expected beginning of the ASEAN economic bloc in 2015. If all goes as planned, the bloc will eliminate most tariffs and promote the free flow of labor and goods within its borders. There is even talk of a common currency. ASEAN, with an area encompassing six hundred million people, will be the next frontier for economic growth.

Many economists have predicted that as China’s competitive advantage in labor costs recedes relative to other developing countries, there will be a gradual migration of manufacturing plants to lower cost countries like Indonesia and Vietnam in addition to other areas in Southeast Asia. Recent developments in China seem to bear this out.

A few months ago, Chinese officials were pressured into raising wages by striking workers at Apple supplier Foxconn in addition to other factories in the country.

However, ASEAN must proceed cautiously on economic integration because, as seen in the eurozone, a step toward monetary union without the concurrent fiscal agreements in place is a recipe for instability.

The European Union is grappling with member countries stricken with slow or negative growth. Unemployment is increasing and production declining but countries cannot take the sort of measures they likely would have had if they still controlled their currencies.

For now, ASEAN’s plans for an economic bloc that encourages trade by reducing barriers, such as tariffs and quotas, is materializing. The adoption of a common ASEAN currency is still very much a long term vision.

Premier Wen Jiabao of China attends the National People's Congress in Beijing, March 5 (Xinhua)

March’s ouster of Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai from the center of Chinese power is proving to be an opportunity for reformist premier Wen Jiabao and his allies to sideline their hardliner rivals.

Before Bo, a local Communist Party boss who was on track to join the Politburo’s Standing Committee, composed of the nine most powerful party leaders, was purged two months ago for alleged abuses of power, five of his allies were expected to be elevated to the Central Military Commission, the body that controls the army. That number is presumed to have dropped to three or four.

In Beijing, there is a rough divide between liberals who favor a more open economy and China’s “peaceful rise” as a superpower and hardliners who adhere more closely to Communist Party orthodoxy and suspect that the United States are conniving with other East Asian countries to contain China.

President Hu Jintao is believed to be in the former camp as is his likely successor, Xi Jinping, currently the Central Military Commission’s vice president. Their views are less pronounced that Wen Jiabao’s however.

Given the consensus building nature of China’s leadership, Hu and Xi cannot afford to take too firm a position lest they alienate hardliners who are influential in Communist Party schools and the military.

Wen, who is set to resign this year, has been outspoken about the need to open up the party if it is to meet the aspirations of the nation’s burgeoning middle class. “The most important mission of a ruling party,” he said in September of last year, “is to abide by and act in strict accordance with the constitution and the laws.”

The party should not replace the government in governance and problems of absolute power and overconcentration of power should be redressed.

The rather old fashioned purge of Bo Xilai, certainly a victory for Wen, would seem to contradict his lofty rhetoric but when he spoke of “overconcentration of power,” the likes of Bo should have listened more attentively.

Bo ran Chongqing as his personal fiefdom. In his crusade against corruption, it were often companies hostile to Bo that bore the brunt of his crime fighting efforts. Opponents were silenced without mercy. Bo and his family enriched themselves at the expense of Chinese taxpayers. He put up a great neo-Maoist show, dressing up schoolgirls in plain workers’ uniforms and having them sing revolutionary songs in the streets of Chongqing. The metropolis was sprawling under his leadership but his huge public investments racked up an enormous debt.

The Chongqing model is not one which Wen’s crowd seeks to imitate on the national level. Although the method of Bo’s removal from power—including suppression of online media that were sympathetic to him—harkened back to the days of the Cultural Revolution, there is no appetite for a return to Maoism in today’s China.

Wen said so quite plainly when he referenced the “tragedy” of the Cultural Revolution in his annual press conference in March, one that without reforms, “may happen again,” he said. It was as clear a condemnation of China’s new left and Bo’s revival of “red culture” as a Chinese politician could possibly deliver.

The amphibious ship USS Essex leads a formation of East Asian and United States Navy ships in the Gulf of Thailand, February 8, 2010

Up until last April, all seemed quiet in the South China Sea. Then, a familiar island dispute surfaced again, prompting a days long standoff between Chinese and Philippine navy ships which culminated in an embarrassing retreat for the Philippines—prompting Manila to almost immediately announce deeper defense cooperation with the United States.

April’s crisis was caused when Chinese fishermen were caught in waters claimed by the Philippines. The Philippine navy tried to arrest the men but Chinese coast guard intervened, ominously encircling the Philippine warship that had been dispatched to the location. The Chinese fishing vessels subsequently left without the Philippine ship making a move.

The island nation isn’t the only one embroiled in maritime border disputes with China. Across the South China Sea, Southeast Asian states claim waters that Beijing insists are its. The United States, seeking to counter China’s rise in the Pacific, are formally neutral in these disputes but regularly participate in joint naval exercises to make clear that they will not tolerate China menacing its neighbors.

Before the Chinese-Philippine standoff, 2011 had gone by without a noticeable incident in the South China Sea region, causing M. Taylor Fravel, who is an associate professor of political science and member of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to write in Foreign Affairs that China was trying to restore its “tarnished image in East Asia” and reduce the rationale for a more active American presence there.

China appeared to realize that its usual brashness, far from compelling neighbors to make concessions, created a shared interest among nations in Southeast Asia “and an incentive for them to seek support from Washington.”

None of that has changed. As the International Crisis Group pointed out in a report (PDF) last month, “Beijing’s shift toward a more moderate approach in the South China Sea in mid-2011 was rooted in the desire to repair some of the damage done to regional relationships that had led to an expanded US role in the region.”

So how to account for the return of what appears to be a confrontational policy?

The think tank observes that there is a divide within the Chinese foreign policy establishment between a civilian government that is timid and military hardliners who insist that China should protect its strategic interests in the region.

A third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of the hydrocarbons destined for Japan, the Korean Peninsula and northeast China pass through the South China Sea.

Conventional wisdom in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, writes the International Crisis Group, is, “you don’t have to do it but you’ll be blamed if you do it and it doesn’t end up well.” Therefore, the bureaucrats would rather “set the disputes aside” and “leave it to the future, smarter generation.”

Some in the military don’t share that patience. Although few believe that China has a short term interest in stirring a conflict in the area, national security hawks “argue for greater assertiveness by making provocative comments in the media.” They may not be representative of the military’s thinking, coming mostly from retired officers and institutions that are affiliated with the military establishment, but “the hardliners have received more attention and inflamed nationalist public sentiment, placing more moderate policy makers in a difficult position.”

Furthermore, there is little legal clarity on what exactly is to be protected or defended and nationalism continues to restrict Beijing’s policy options.

China’s claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea, though patently revisionist, are ill defined. This adds an element of uncertainty to an already volatile situation. Strategic mistrust between China and the United States makes it all the more difficult for cooler headers to prevail.

So far, China has chosen to deploy its coast guard instead of naval assets to force its neighbors into compromises or submission in South China Sea disputes. What it seeks to avoid is the Southeast Asian states banding together and drawing in the United States further to back up their own claims.

Yet this is exactly what is happening. The tactics that China considers cautious are interpreted as bullying abroad, necessitating an American engagement to provide balance.

The difficulty for the Chinese is that to deescalate the situation, they would either have to negotiate on maritime borders which requires compromise or wind down their military presence which could be seen both by its own people and neighboring governments as surrender and risk “losing” more ground.

Flag of North Korea (Dion Gillard)

North Korea has finished preparations for their third nuclear test at the Punggye-ri test site and is awaiting the political decision to commence detonation.

Setting off a third nuclear device is a widely expected move for the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea but it’s not one that will do them any favors.

Having already faced condemnation from the West in going ahead with their rocket test in April and rumored to have taken a massive lashing from China during high level meetings in Beijing last week, there seems to be little that North Korea can gain by proceeding with the test.

Losing foreign aide from non-Chinese powers is problematic but probably survivable. However, the DPRK’s recent rocket launch went ahead without properly warning Beijing and China is equally vexed by Pyongyang’s plans for their nuclear device. There have already been insinuations of China ceasing repatriation of North Korean defectors (this won’t actually happen, China doesn’t want to give a green light to a sudden humanitarian crisis on its soil) but a nuclear test may force China to act more concretely on their threats toward the DPRK.

China’s arrangement with North Korea rests on keeping the country afloat as long as it pays China a modicum of respect. This respect involves proper warning of North Korea’s missile and nuclear test whims, economic zone and trade privileges and covertly bowing to China when Beijing disagrees on certain issues.

In Kim Jong-un’s first few months as ruler of North Korea, he’s sought to give the North Korean military every bell and whistle to keep them in his pocket but he’s utterly failed to pay Beijing the proper reverence it has become accustomed to.

The DPRK would come to a complete halt without Chinese assistance. China still supplies much of what makes North Korea tick, Pyongyangites are becoming more and more infatuated with Chinese goods and trade with China is finally seeing some small export success. The testing of a nuclear device against China’s wishes would seriously damage North Korea’s forward momentum in these areas.

During Kim Jong-il’s lifetime, his main contribution toward North Korea was to weaken the Korean Workers’ Party’s control and its ability to overthrow his rule by putting the military above all state and party organizations. He was smart and savvy enough to keep them under his thumb.

Unfortunately, Kim Jong-un finds himself the heir to a Songun (“military first”) state that believes foreign relations are best achieved with missiles, artillery and nuclear weapons, without the ability to properly keep his military in check.

Kim Jong-un’s grandfather proved himself as a leader though a nationalistic war (and Soviet support). Kim Jong-un may feel the need to continue feeding his military to prove legitimacy of his own. But fueling his domestic military at the cost of international relations is isolating his regime at a time when it is most in need of foreign assistance.

The young Kim may be walking a fine line between proving his merit as a leader via military strength and avoiding actual war but by giving into the DPRK military’s every whim, he may be slowly sinking his regime.

If the nuclear test occurs, Kim Jong-un will be squarely in the pocket of the North Korean military and not vice versa.

This article originally appeared at Asia Security Watch, May 2, 2012.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan speaks at a tourism conference in Tokyo, April 17 (WTTC)

During the Mekong-Japan Summit held in Tokyo last month, Japan announced additional development aid for and investments in the countries that make up the Mekong Delta region.

The summit was further evidence of Japan’s goal of developing stronger relations with Southeast Asian states as the Japanese economy is beset with tepid growth and due to the uncertainty and mistrust with the region’s biggest and fastest growing power, China.

However, the headlines last month overlooked one of the most important outcomes of these meetings thus far, the steady improvement of Japan-Vietnam relations to the level of strategic partnership.

Bilateral trade between Japan and Vietnam reached $21 billion last year, making Japan Vietnam’s leading trade partner in the region.

This comes as Japan and Vietnam have held increasingly numerous high level meetings and exchanges with each other. Both countries realize that they have a mutual interest in cooperating strategically in order to counter the growing maritime threat emanating from China.

During the summit, the fourth since 2009, Japan pledged ¥600 billion ($7.4 billion) in official development assistance to the five countries of the Mekong Delta—Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The development aid will come in the form of loans, grants and infrastructure assistance and be spread over the next three years.

Japan’s previous aid commitment to the Mekong nation in 2009 was more than ¥500 billion over a similar three year period.

The summit provided a forum for the parties to discuss economic development, trade and political issues coming after a year of natural disasters in Japan and Thailand and the continuing fear over the prospect of the global economic crisis affecting the region. In their joint statement, Japan and the Mekong countries announced that they will continue to hold meetings at every level in order to encourage continued cooperation.

It was also significant that Burmese president Thein Sein attended because, besides being the first trip to Japan by a leader from Myanmar in twenty-eight years, the West has been gradually welcoming the country in from the cold since the government embraced political and economic reforms.

Myanmar is desperately seeking investment now that sanctions are being lifted in the wake of the recent elections in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party won forty-three of the forty-five contested parliamentary seats.

Japan hopes to ramp up its investment in Myanmar, as China has virtually had the entire country to itself in terms of infrastructure development and access to natural resources.

Just before the summit it was announced that Japan had agreed to forgive roughly half of the ¥500 billion ($6 billion) in debt that Myanmar owed it, with the balance dependant on reforms that the Myanmar Government must follow through on.

In addition to the development aid and economic opportunities, the joint statement expressed the countries’ solidarity in supporting free navigation of the seas, a reference to the continuing crisis over claims to islands in the South China and East China Seas in which Beijing has been increasingly assertive.

The Mekong countries, in turn, continued to extend Japan support in its bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council which China has long resisted.

In sum, the Mekong countries have a collective interest in engaging more deeply with Japan and vice versa, both as a counterweight to China and for their own development. Japanese investment revitalizes its own economy by assisting with the development of what it hopes will be future markets for its goods.

Tokyo, Japan at night, December 4, 2008 (cocoip)

In a move widely expected, but one which ultimately left markets disappointed, the Bank of Japan announced more measures that it hopes will fight off deflationary pressures and spur economic growth as well as weaken the yen versus the dollar to boost exports.

Japan’s central bank is expanding its government bond buying program by ¥10 trillion ($124 billion) to ¥40 trillion, extending the duration of corporate bonds it buys from two up to three years maturity and increasing the size of its total asset buying program by ¥5 trillion ($61 billion) to ¥70 trillion.

In addition, the central bank’s policy board voted unanimously to keep interest rates at virtually zero or .1 percent.

Market reaction was initially positive but when investors digested the news in its totality, sentiment soured. Given the size of Japan’s economy, the amount of easing was seen as fairly tepid.

In addition, the Bank of Japan said it was decreasing the amount of funds it lends at a fixed rate of .1 percent to institutions by ¥5 trillion. So, traders saw this as the central bank on the one hand injecting liquidity into the economy while removing it on the other.

Lawmakers have been pushing for the central bank to begin another round of quantitative easing as Japan continues to battle deflation amid anemic growth with the yen strengthening as a result of fears about the global recovery. Coupled with an announcement by the Japanese flagship company, Sony, of massive layoffs, concerns that Japan’s recovery has begun to slow are mounting.

Industrial production for March rose 1 percent from February, versus expectations of it rising 2.6 percent. Japanese manufacturing, while still in expansion mode, slowed in April.

However, the moves by the Bank of Japan belie the fact that the Japanese Government has still not faced up to the endemic structural problems in the economy which continue to prevent strong growth from taking hold. Specifically, Japan’s policy makers have avoided taking the tough but necessary measures to reverse thirty years of stagnation.

Japan’s aging society demands that the government do something that increases the country’s declining birthrates, as it has some of the lowest in the world. Liberalization of the nation’s immigration laws, for instance, would enable an infusion of workers.

Japan has long resisted opening large segments of its economy to foreign competition, as its politicians cling to the protection of their power bases. The government needs to bite the bullet and encourage more trade.

Instead of instituting reforms, the government avoids confronting its vested interests and lays the responsibility of stimulating growth on the central bank. Such policy avoidance by the legislature has not worked over the last three decades and will unlikely be the answer going forward.

Amphibious assault vehicles from the transport dock ship USS Denver participate in an exercise in the South China Sea, February 10, 2011 (US Navy/Paul Kelly)

Vietnam and the United States have announced that they will hold five days of “noncombatant” military exercises in the central part of the country near the city of Da Nang at the end of April 2012.

Press reports indicate that the drills will be focused on skills like navigation and maintenance.

The cooperation between the former enemies points to the new dynamic at play in the region with the smaller nations fronting the South China Sea increasingly falling into the arms of the United States due to their fear of a rising China.

The American-Vietnamese plans to conduct drills comes against the backdrop of a fresh dispute between China and the Philippines. The latest confrontation between the two nations was triggered when Chinese fishermen were discovered in waters claimed by both China and the Philippines. The Chinese deployed navy ships and planes to the area in support of what it said were its sovereign rights, forcing the present Philippine warship to vacate.

Relations between Vietnam and the United States have steadily improved over the last ten years as they share mutual concern over China’s rise and future plans in the region. Vietnam, like the other littoral states, has claims to portions of the South China Sea which is believed to hold vast reserves of oil and gas deposits.

As the Chinese navy vastly increased its capabilities in recent years, Vietnam has also embarked on expanding its naval posture. In 2009, it bought six Russian diesel submarines worth $2 billion, in addition to eight Sukhoi fighter jets, with plans to buy more in the future.

Although they share a communist ideology, bilateral relations between China and Vietnam have been historically difficult. The two fought a war in 1979 after China became concerned that Vietnam was developing closer relations with the Soviet Union. This was a time when Sino-Soviet ties were strained and there was a fear that Chinese interests in Indochina would be affected.

The war was inconclusive militarily but sent the message that China would not tolerate with outside meddling in its backyard.

Beijing has tended to bully its neighbors when it is powerful. In 2011, it warned Vietnam that it would not hesitate to use military force to enforce its claims in the South China Sea region.

Despite China’s threats, in April 2012, Vietnam partnered with Russia’s Gazprom company to develop two offshore gas fields in the ocean.

Vietnam faces a quandary of seeking help from the United States against China without allowing the country to open up to political reform. The government has succeeded, however, in keeping tight control over power even as it reformed the economy, much like China has done. Following its economic reforms, foreign direct investment flowed into the country lifting average annual growth to 8 percent from 2003 to 2007. However, the World Bank predicts that Vietnam’s economy faces tough prospects going forward from rising inflation and increasing unemployment.

As such, the old axiom holds true in Southeast Asia as elsewhere. The enemy of one’s enemy is one’s friend. China and the United States aren’t quite enemies but the region’s smaller countries share concerns about its military expansion and what it means for their interests going forward. For this reason, China is pushing countries like Vietnam to seek out support from the Americans in order to balance China’s power.

For its part, America is eager to reestablish its position in Asia as it has announced that its economic and political interests lie here in the twenty-first century, hence President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia. Therefore, we can expect to see additional plans for drills between militaries as the specter of a rising China hangs over the region and the world.

Sailors aboard the Chinese navy destroyer Qingdao prepare to depart Pearl Harbor, September 10, 2006 (US Navy/David Rush)

The Chinese fishermen who were engaged in a standoff at sea with Philippine navy ships simply sailed away on Saturday and so did the main Philippine warship. Crisis averted? Not quite.

Tensions flared anew after China deployed a second surveillance ship, along with an aircraft that briefly flew over a Philippine coast guard vessel at the disputed shoal where the Chinese say their fishermen sought refuge from a storm.

Manila accused the Chinese of illegally entering its waters and collecting endangered coral, clams and live sharks near the Scarborough Shoal on Tuesday, northwest of the Philippine islands. Two Chinese navy ships arrived at the scene within a matter of days to prevent the arrest of the fishermen.

According to the Philippines, “The stalemate remains,” even if neither the fishing crew nor the surface combatant BRP Gregorio del Pilar are evidently present at the scene anymore.

Although China may appear to have won the day, its neighbors, certainly the Philippines, will have only more reason to pull the United States into the South China Sea area to balance against what they perceive to be China’s bullying tactics.

China couldn’t give in without undermining its borders claims—allowing its citizens to be arrested by the Philippines for fishing in “their” waters—but it could have negotiated their release rather than giving the Philippines no alternative to either losing face or risking a skirmish.

Since the Philippines have lost face, there is an impetus for them to seek a more powerful American engagement in the region.

Some six hundred Special Forces are currently stationed in the Philippines in assistance of local counterinsurgency efforts. United States Navy ships regularly call at Philippine ports but the Americans haven’t had a permanent base in the island nation since they were kicked out of Subic Bay in 1992. Don’t be surprised if that soon changes.

North Korean leader Kim Jon-un watches a mass games performance in Pyongyang with Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho by his side, October 9, 2010 (AP/Xinhu/Yao Dawei)

North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party named Kim Jung-un its first secretary on Wednesday. The position replaces that of secretary general which, in good family tradition, the young ruler’s deceased father Kim Jong-il will hold “eternally.”

Kim’s grandfather and founder of the dynasty, Kim Il-sung, is remembered as the people’s republic “eternal president.”

In his new capacity, Kim Jong-un has become a member of the presidium of the Politburo, the executive branch of the North Korean Government. He already commands the armed forces and is assumed to wield far more power than the remaining four members of the body that nominally rules the country.

Jang Sung-taek, Kim’s uncle who is considered a power behind the throne, was simultaneously elevated to full membership of the Politburo. Jang occupies a number of key positions. As the director of the party’s Administration Department, he oversees the security services. After Kim Jong-il’s death, he appeared in uniform for the first time despite his lack of military experience. It was likely a sign of his further rise within North Korea’s bewildering government structure where state, party and army positions often overlap and intertwine.

Another key player in Kim’s shadow is Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho. Between 2003 and 2009, he commanded the defense forces around the capital of Pyongyang, a prestigious post that put him at the heart of the North Korean military apparatus. The next year, he was elevated to the presidium of the Politburo and named vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. He subsequently appeared in Kim Jong-il’s company on a number of public occasions, signaling his role as a shepherd of Kim Jong-un’s ascendancy.

Also a member of the Politburo’s presidium now is Choe Ryong-hae, recently promoted to the rank of vice marshal but really a party apparatchik.

Like Ri, Choe is considered one of the young Kim’s “guardians.” If Ri was supposed to shield him from a challenge from the generals, Choe’s role may be that of party power broker.

Kim now firmly sits atop both the army and party structures bit given the North’s penchant for secrecy, it is impossible to tell whether he actually controls them too.

That is not to say that Kim’s position is insecure. Far from it. Kim Il-sung’s heir gives a face to the regimize and legitimizes it in the eyes of ordinary Koreans who have been brought up believing in the almost mythical proportions of the Kim dynasty’s powers.

Whatever intrigue is occuring behind the scenes (if there is), the North Korean regime is internally stable and unlikely to collapse as the result of backstabbing, let alone a coup.

Threats emanate from abroad. China is increasingly irritated by its client state’s unpredictable and seemingly erratic behavior but there is order in the North’s chaos. It considers Japan and South Korea mere puppet states of the United States’ which would like to see the regime replaced by one that cares rather more for its own people. In playing up the threat of “imperialist” American intervention, Pyongyang intentionally tumbles from one crisis into another to justify spending an eyewatering share of its resources on military spending. “Military first” was Kim Jong-il’s dogma and there’s no reason to assume that will change now that his son is in power.