Is Kim Jong Un Carrying Out a Major Shake-up of North Korea’s Leadership? Vice Premier Suddenly Dismissed During Factory Inspection

[Financial News] During an on-site inspection, Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, summarily dismissed the Vice Premier of the Cabinet and sharply rebuked senior Cabinet officials across the board. This abrupt move by Kim appears to be aimed at reshuffling the Cabinet ahead of the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea, scheduled to be held in February.
According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on the 20th, Kim on the 19th suddenly dismissed Yang Sung-ho, Vice Premier of the Cabinet, during the completion ceremony for the first-stage renovation and modernization project at the Ryongsong Machine Complex in Hamhung City, South Hamgyong Province.
Kim criticized that the project had gone wrong from the very first stage of the process. He said, "In particular, the Vice Premier of the Cabinet in charge of the machine-building industry is not a person suited to his current position," adding, "I recommend to Comrade Premier (Pak Thae-song) that, when forming the new government, another person be appointed in place of this Vice Premier."
He went on to say, "Comrade Vice Premier, you should step down of your own accord while you still can, before it is too late," declaring, "Here and now, I dismiss Comrade Vice Premier from his post." Kim added that he did not believe Yang, the Vice Premier, had "acted against the Party," but nonetheless condemned him in harsh terms, saying that he had "attempted to make a mockery of the Party Central with improper words and deeds."
He likened the situation to "harnessing a goat to pull a cart," and continued, "It is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat." Yang is a high-ranking official who has served as manager of the Taean Heavy Machine Complex and as Minister of Machine-Building Industry, and has also risen to the position of alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Workers' Party of Korea.
In his speech, Kim also took the unusual step of revealing in detail the background to the setbacks in the first-stage modernization project at the Ryongsong Machine Complex. He said that as the modernization was being carried out in a "slapdash, window-dressing" manner, the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea dispatched a group of experts in modernization of the military industry to conduct a comprehensive review of the situation, and that they identified more than 60 issues that needed to be corrected.
Kim stated that "there are many problems within the ranks of administrative officials at present," and raised issues with the overall system for appointing cadres.
He demanded that the authorities "decisively root out the deeply entrenched, extreme irresponsibility, self-preservationism, and loafer-like behavior among officials," and said, "We must set our sights on those who, while pretending to be devoted to implementing Party decisions, in fact focus on their own safety and self-preservation and fail to cast off escapism and shortsighted attitudes, and we must launch ideological education and ideological offensives against them."
Observers interpret Kim’s unusually harsh reprimand and dismissal of senior officials as being linked to the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea.
However, an official in charge of analyzing the situation in North Korea at the Ministry of Unification (MOU) had previously predicted that there would not be large-scale personnel changes around the time of the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea. A MOU official assessed on this day that "through high-intensity personnel measures and warnings, they are instilling a sense of alertness and tightening discipline ahead of the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea."
rainman@fnnews.com Kim Kyung-soo Reporter