【英语国际】金正日提拔第三子 传位第一步

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il appointed his third son and his sister as senior generals in the country's army, the biggest sign yet of his bid to maintain family control over the isolated country of 24 million.

North Korea's official media announced the appointments early Tuesday local time, just hours before the start of the biggest meeting of the country's ruling Workers' Party in 30 years, an event many outside analysts believed would signal the beginning of a leadership change.

The appointments appeared to bring a close to more than a year of speculation that Mr. Kim, who is believed to be 69 years old and in weakened physical condition, is making plans to transfer control of the authoritarian regime if he dies or is incapacitated. But they quickly opened a new set of questions about the country's stability and direction.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the appointments would have any effect on North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons, which has long troubled the U.S. and other countries, or its resolve to develop its economy with little trade or contact with the rest of the world.

'The U.S. is watching the developments in North Korea carefully, and we will be engaged with all of our partners in the Asia Pacific region as we try to assess the meaning of what transpires there,' Kurt M. Campbell, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in a briefing in New York on Monday afternoon. 'But frankly, it's too early to tell for taking any steps and trying to assess what's going on with the country's leadership.'

State-run Korea Central News Agency said Mr. Kim's son Kim Jong Eun and sister Kim Kyong Hui would become four-star generals, the highest rank in the Korean People's Army.

Those titles reinforce the importance of North Korea's military in carrying out a succession. Mr. Kim himself never served as a general in the military, but his power rests in his job as chairman of the National Defense Commission, a panel of approximately 10 men that is considered the country's most powerful organization.

Whether the latest actions will make the Kim regime more or less stable will depend, analysts say, on how they are received by the military. On paper, the military is equal in power to North Korea's ruling political party. But it has long been considered a more dominant force, responsible even for much of the country's economic activity.

In recent weeks, South Korean news reports citing North Korean defectors have said some military officials in the North aren't happy to see control pass to someone as young as Kim Jong Eun, who is believed to be about 27 years old. Though such reports aren't easily confirmed, Mr. Kim could be trying to tamp down such criticisms by naming his son and sister to the high-ranking military jobs.

The younger Mr. Kim reportedly attended a military academy in Pyongyang for five years, but it isn't known whether he completed the 10-year tour in the army that is mandatory for North Korean males.

The move marked the first time that Kim Jong Eun has been mentioned in public in North Korea. Outside analysts and media have speculated since early last year that Mr. Kim favored his youngest son more than his two other sons as a potential successor.

Little is known about the younger Mr. Kim, including his precise birth year, believed to be 1983 or 1984. He attended a private school in Switzerland for one or two years as a teenager, a period that yielded the only known picture of him.

For North Korea analysts, much of the anticipation of Tuesday's political meeting centered on whether the younger Mr. Kim would appear publicly for the first time.

The son's swift military appointment went beyond what even the most aggressive analysts expected Mr. Kim would do. Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based shortwave and Web service, made the most explicit predictions for Tuesday's meeting. It said Kim Jong Eun would be appointed to three non-military posts-standing member equal to his father in the party's Politburo; secretary in the party's Secretariat, which runs North Korea day-to-day; and member of the party's Central Military Commission, which is different from the more powerful National Defense Commission.

The Workers Party may still appoint the younger Mr. Kim to the party posts during its meeting later Tuesday.

'It's clear that the job of the [party] gathering is to put in the fix, announce the decision that's already been made, which is simply that it's all in the family,' said Nicholas Eberstadt, political economist and Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

The leader's simultaneous appointment of his sister to a post no woman is believed to have held in North Korea showed that Mr. Kim doesn't believe the young son can lead on his own, analysts say.

Mr. Kim and his sister shared a troubled childhood after the death of their mother left them fearful for years that their dictator father, Kim Il Sung, would shun them, according to biographies of both leaders written by outsiders. For years, she has led North Korea's agency in charge of light industries. Last year, she published an economic tract promoting the country's top-down control over the economy.

Mr. Kim earlier this year reportedly told party leaders: 'Kim Kyong Hui is myself. The words of Kim Kyong Hui are my words.'

In the past few years, his sister's husband, Jang Song Taek, has frequently been seen in public with Kim Jong Il. He fell out of favor with Mr. Kim in 2004 and was stripped of his titles. But just two years later, in a comeback that analysts attribute to his wife's influence, Mr. Jang gained several prominent positions in the political party, including running construction projects in the capital city.

In June, Mr. Jang was elevated to vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, certifying him as the most powerful person after Kim Jong Il.

Kim Jong Il took control of North Korea in 1994 following the death of his father Kim Il Sung, who founded the country as a communist dictatorship in 1948. His father began preparing the transition decades earlier by appointing Kim Jong Il to party posts starting in the late 1960s.

Kim Il Sung introduced Kim Jong Il for the first time publicly in 1980, at a meeting of party representatives that was the last such gathering before the one Tuesday.

For years before then, Kim Jong Il resisted his father's efforts to appoint a brother, Kim Yong Ju, to positions that might rival his own then-growing power. But Kim Jong Il has now put his own son into a potential rivalry with his sister and brother-in-law, analysts noted.

'He's doing something for his son that he wouldn't have wanted for himself,' Mr. Eberstadt said. 'This makes the whole outlook for decision-making, leadership and the rest a bit cloudy.'

Gordon Flake, a Korea specialist and executive director of the Mansfield Foundation in Washington, added: 'As long as Kim Jong Il is still alive, this is just the beginning of a process of succession and not the succession itself.'

Shortly after taking power, Mr. Kim created a policy called 'military first' that placed the military at the center of all policies and acted as a way to shift responsibilities for the declining economy away from him.

North Korea is much poorer and less stable today than it was under Mr. Kim's father. A famine from 1995 to 1997 killed 2 million to 3 million North Koreans, aid agencies estimate, and sowed distrust in the government.

Mr. Kim's government created more enmity last December with an attempt to halt market-like economic activity and a revaluation of currency that wiped out the savings of millions of people. That move prompted protests that were significant enough to draw attention of aid agencies and other outsiders and forced the government to retreat from the clampdown. In recent months, markets in some North Korea cities were reportedly back in full operation.

Associated Press出席朝鲜党代会的代表周一抵达平壤。
朝鲜领导人金正日(Kim Jong Il)任命他的第三子和妹妹担任军队的高级将领。这是目前为止金正日力图对这个2,400万人口孤立国家维持家族统治的最明显迹象。

Associated Press金正日朝鲜官方媒体于当地时间周二早晨宣布了上述消息，距朝鲜劳动党30年来最大规模会议开幕仅隔数小时。外界很多分析人士认为，会议将发出领导层开始变更的信号。

一年多以来，外界一直在猜测：据信已有69岁、身体虚弱的金正日，可能正在制定其独裁政权的权力交接计划，以备自己去世或无法动弹。上述人事任命消息应该是结束了这种猜测，但很快又让人对这个国家的稳定与走向产生一系列新的疑问。

人事任命是否会对朝鲜的核武器追求产生任何影响，是否会对它在很少与外界展开贸易或接触的情况下发展经济的决心产生任何影响，暂时还无法得知。长期以来，美国和其他国家都因为朝鲜谋求核武器而头疼。

美国负责东亚与太平洋事务的助理国务卿坎贝尔(Kurt M. Campbell)周一下午在纽约的一次吹风会上说，美国正在细心观察朝鲜的变动，我们将和我们在亚太地区的伙伴一道忙起来，同时评估当地所发生情况的意义；但坦白地讲，要不要采取什么措施，对该国领导层所发生新情况的评估会得出什么结果，现在还不到说这些的时候。

Agence France Presse/Getty Images金正日第三子金正银（上学时照片）。官方媒体朝鲜中央通讯社(Central News Agency)说，金正日的儿子金正银(Kim Jong Eun)和妹妹金敬姬(Kim Kyong Hui)将成为四星将领，这是朝鲜人民军的最高级别。

这种头衔加强了朝鲜军方在执行权力交接过程中的重要性。金正日从未在军队当过将领，但他的权力来自于国防委员会委员长这个职位。国防委员会大约由10人组成，被认为是朝鲜最有权力的组织。

分析人士说，这一最新任命举措是否能使金氏家族的统治更加稳固取决于他们是否能被朝鲜军界所接受。表面上看，军队和朝鲜执政党的实力旗鼓相当，但是外界一直认为前者的势力更加强大，它甚至负责朝鲜大部分的经济事务。

近几周，韩国新闻援引朝鲜出逃者的话报道说，一些朝鲜军事官员并不愿看到统治大权交给如此年轻的金正银，外界认为他大概27岁左右。虽然这些报道要得到证实并不容易，但金正日可能正试图通过指定其儿子和妹妹出任高级军事职位来打击此类批评言论。

据说金正银在平壤一所军事院校学习了五年，但对于他是否履行了朝鲜男性公民必须履行的10年兵役义务，还不得而知。

此次任命是朝鲜首次公开提及金正银。外界分析人士和媒体自去年初就纷纷猜测，金正日有意让其最年幼的儿子金正银作为接班人，而不是他另外两个儿子。

有关金正银的信息现在几乎一无所知，连他的出生年份也不能确定，一般认为是1983或1984年。青少年时，他曾去瑞士上过一两年的私立学校，目前公开的唯一一张有关他的照片也是在那段时期拍的。

对于朝鲜分析人士来说，周二政治会议的主要期待都集中在金正银是否会首次公开露面。

朝鲜电视台报导劳动党代表在30年来最大规模会议开幕时齐聚平壤。根据最新消息，金正日正式提拔了第三子。此次突然任命金正银作为军事将领，这甚至超出了分析师关于金正日将如何动作的最大胆的猜测。韩国首尔一个短波和网络服务媒体“朝鲜开放电台”(Open Radio for North Korea)对周二朝鲜会议做出了最为具体的预测：金正银将被任命担当三个职位──朝鲜劳动党政治局常委，与金正日并列；负责国家日常事务的朝鲜劳动党书记处书记；以及劳动党中央军事委员会成员，该委员会不同于实力更为强大的朝鲜国防委员会。这三个职位都非军职。

劳动党会议在周二晚些时候可能还要委派党内其它要职给金正银。

华盛顿美国企业研究所(American Enterprise Institute)政治经济学家、朝韩问题专家埃伯施塔特(Nicholas Eberstadt)说，很显然，这次劳动党开会就是一个形式，把已经做好的决定宣布出来，其实就是将所有权力集于金氏家族一身。

分析人士说，金正日此次任命金正银的同时还提拔了自己的妹妹担任要职，该职位在朝鲜历史上从未出现过女性，这说明金正日不认为金正银可以独自担当治国重任。

据局外人士撰写的传记称，金正日和他的妹妹经历了不幸的童年，母亲去世后，他们一直害怕独裁父亲金日成（Kim Il Sung）会抛弃他们。金敬姬多年来一直负责朝鲜的轻工业发展部门。去年，她出版了一本经济小册子，推动朝鲜对经济的集权控制。

据称，金正日在今年早些时候告诉党内领袖说，金敬姬就是我，金敬姬的话就是我的话。

过去几年，金敬姬的丈夫张成泽（Jang Song Taek）经常与金正日一起出现在公众场合。他在2004年失宠并被免去头衔。但是就在两年后，张成泽在党内又重新担任多个要职，包括在首都平壤负责建筑工程项目，分析人士认为他的复职得益于妻子的影响力。

6月，张成泽被提升为国防委员会（National Defense Commission）副委员长，确认了其仅次于金正日的二把手地位。

金正日在1994年其父亲金日成去世后开始掌权，金日成于1948年建立共产党专政的朝鲜民主主义人民共和国。金日成提前三十年就开始为接班做准备，从20世纪60年代末就开始任命金正日担任党内职位。

朝鲜领导人金正日任命其第三子为四星将领，这是朝鲜人民军的最高级别。该任命被看作是金正日家族权利交替的象征。金日成于1980年一次党代会上首次向公众提及儿子金正日，也是周二党代会之前的最后一次党代会。

多年以前，金正日反对他父亲任命弟弟金英柱（Kim Yong Ju）担任要职，恐与自己当时正在增长的力量形成竞争。分析人士说，但现在金正日却将自己的儿子送到一个可能会与其妹妹和妹夫竞争的境地。

埃伯施塔特说，他正在对他的儿子做一件他曾经不想发生在自己身上的事，这使得决策、领导力及其他事情的整个局面有些扑朔迷离。

朝鲜问题专家、华盛顿曼斯菲尔德基金会（Mansfield Foundation）执行董事弗雷克（Gordon Flake）补充道，只要金正日还活着，这就仅仅是接班过程的开始，而非接班本身。

在掌权后不久，金正日就制定了一项叫做“先军政治”的政策，将军事作为所有政策的中心，从而转移其对朝鲜正在衰退的经济的责任。

与金日成掌权时期相比，现在的朝鲜更贫穷、更不稳定。救援机构估测，1995年到1997年的饥荒导致200万至300万朝鲜人死亡，播下了人民对政府不信任的种子。

金正日政府去年10月试图阻止有市场化倾向的经济活动并进行货币重估，使几百万人的储蓄化为乌有，这引起了人民的更多不满。该举动引起的严重抗议足以吸引救援机构和其他局外人士的目光，迫使政府最终放弃压制。据称，近几个月朝鲜部分城市的市场恢复到了正常运营的状态。