popular, Jang was a natural-born leader whose singing ability and prowess with the accordion made him even more endearing. Kim Jong Il had elevated Jang to the inner circle right around the same time that he was grooming Jong Un, suggesting that the elder Kim intended for Jang to help his son navigate the bureaucracy along with Kyong Hui. In 2013, Jang was in his late sixties, a seasoned and savvy bureaucrat who probably had at least another decade or so left in a regime that was dominated by septuagenarians and octogenarians. The international media touted him as the second-most-important individual behind Kim Jong Un, and his experience and vast network of contacts, especially with Chinese leaders, stimulated speculation about how Jang might be a key player in North Korea’s potential reform and opening.
Jang had survived purges before—he had been demoted and “reeducated” at least twice, standard practice for the Kim regime—but this was different. On December 8, 2013, Kim Jong Un’s regime accused Jang of a litany of charges during an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party. A few days later, a military tribunal found that Jang and his followers committed the “hideous crime [of] attempting to overthrow the state.” Not only had he violated the trust and benevolence of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, but the “despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog,” also had perpetrated “acts of treachery” in his attempts to create an alternative power structure to counter the unitary and supreme leadership of Kim Jong Un.
His greed and arrogance knew no bounds, according to the charges levied against him. Jang “rallied ex-convicts” around him and worked to consolidate power under his offices, his “little kingdom.” With his band of conspirators, he plundered the nation’s resources for his own benefit, putting his “stooges” at the head of the most lucrative coal and metals industries and selling off land to foreign powers—specifically, to China. The list of his economic crimes against the state and people spanned decades, and the tribunal charged that he had taken more than four million euros into his coffers. His avarice extended beyond political and economic crimes, for he “worked to stretch his tentacles even to the People’s Army with a foolish calculation that he would succeed in staging a coup.” In his “confession,” Jang stated that his intention was to lead the country toward bankruptcy, increase the people’s discontent, and use his accumulated funds to buy loyalty and cement his power when he took over.
The once powerful and imperious Jang was escorted out of the courtroom following the tribunal; hunched over, he looked older than his age and defeated. Two of his deputies had already been executed days before by antiaircraft guns. Whatever remained of their bodies was burned by a flamethrower, as Jang was forced to watch; he reportedly collapsed after having witnessed their gruesome deaths. After his sentencing, Jang was reportedly taken to the Kanggon Military Training Area, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, and executed in the same way as his deputies. Jang’s highly publicized downfall and humiliation and the grisly and disproportionate execution method with machinery designed for warfare made one thing clear: Kim Jong Un would not tolerate any dissent, not even from members of his own family. The new leader had easily accomplished what he’d likely wanted to do: extinguish any nascent and existing dissent and instill fear through a spectacular act of intimidation.
Even by the standards of North Korea’s bloody past, the Jang purge was shocking. “The spectacle of public humiliation—and liquidation of a royal marks a radical departure from business as usual,” observed longtime North Korea watcher Nicholas Eberstadt. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il had carried out purges in secret—leaders simply disappeared without explanation. As Andrei Lankov and others have noted, such high-ranking officials were usually exiled and had a good chance of being remediated and brought back into the fold after a sufficient period of atonement. But this time was different. Kim Jong Un’s methods—publishing in full Jang’s crimes and the lengthy indictment and releasing photographs of him stooped over in complete submission—seemed to suggest that he was far more brutal than his predecessors and even savored the drama and the theatrical flair of the whole affair.
Fear gripped North Korean officialdom. With methodical and systematic discipline, the Kim regime began to root out close associates of Jang and in the process revealed the extent to which