Who believes Kim Jong Un is dead?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Supposedly in a vegetative state.

So that puts him now as the world’s second dumbest head of state.

Sorry, but T.rump holds the first three places.

[Anomalocaris]

i doubt kim is in any serious medical distress.  the sort of regime in north korea is highly personality dependent.   when the ruler is young and there is no really clear line of succession with a overwhelming and strong favorite successor, there must be a mad dash by everyone who thinks he has a chance, or who thinks his enemy has a chance, to jockey for position.
this would undoubtedly include movement of troops and other assets which can secure a person’s position in a dictatorial national defense state.

if we don’t see military units shifting.  senior military officers going to their field headquarters to be closer to their troops and farther of the snake pit at the center of power, then the people really in the know in north korea doesn’t think kim is dying anytime soon.   it’s as simple as that.

also, the south koreans and the chinese know this far better than we do. if they are not mobilizing in anticipation of opportunity to assert their own interests in the case of severe infighting north korea in the aftermath of kim’s death, then they don’t think kim is dying anytime soon.

[Pat Mustard]

China will try to take over by brute force to expand the CCP. Sth Korea will cry for help and there's our WW111 that America needs right now.
(I truly hope I'm wrong!)

China won't take over, as absorbing the DPRK would be more trouble than it's worth. Remember we're talking about a country going through a permanent famine, has little to no industrial base to speak of and is so brainwashed into the cult of the Kims that nothing worthwhile would come from taking it over.

It's useful to China currently as a buffer zone against possible future US military action, take over the country and that buffer's gone.

---

Like everyone else, all heads of state will eventually die.

Except for Elizabeth II. I’m starting to think that old bat is immortal.

Boru

She's waiting for Brian (Prince Charles to non Private Eye readers) to pop his clogs first.

[Anomalocaris]

If the Kim regime survives, China has nothing to fear about losing her buffer because the baggage of the Kim family makes it Unlike they can deviate from the path of totalitarian dictatorship reliant on China for survival.    If it appears the Kim family is about to be overthrown, and a new power without the baggage, and therefore able to envision its own survival while opening up and embrace a reproachment with South Korea, China will also have nothing to fear because wjat United South Korea with the west will increasingly not be democracy but the fear of North Korea.    A liberalized North Korea will bring South Korea into the Chinese fold Because South Korea loath japan and detest the US as much as she does China, but China increasingly look like she would inevitably come into a position where she is better able to reward South Korea for compliance and punish it for hostility than the US.

If it appears the Kim family is about to be overthrown but the new power for some inexplicable reason thing it is a good thing to approach Taiwan and the US, then China will intervene.  But such a outcome is nearly impossible.

One thing all this blaming of China for the Covid 19 pandemic obscured in the US is in Asia china’s star is seen to be on the ascendant while America’s is waning.   China’s controlling of the pandemic and the American inability to seen as the bell weather in Asia as indicator that China has the effectiveness of internal organization, strength of government, and consistency of strategy and purpose to surpass and displace the US, and the US has lost all those when each of those would be required to forestall it.

Most governments in East Asia having 5o chose between China and the US are making long term decisions with the criteria that it must not be seen as benefiting in the long run American influence at the expense of Chinese influence, because in the long run American influence won;t be there to reward decisions to favor the US, where as Chinese influence would be there to punish decisions to favor the US.

[Mr Greene]

They won't announce it till after the succession has been secured, that took 2 days last time.

[Anomalocaris]

Kim Jong Un is only 35 years old. He has no adult children therefore no clear, long anointed successor as his two predecessors had at the time of their demises. This means any succession now will be messy. So the succession won’t be a neat affair that would only be announced when it is completed.

There would be troop movements, there would be arrests and executions. There would be armored trains moving here and there. If we have not detected that, then succession is not imminent much less underway.

[Fake Messiah]

You know what is also strange? Kim had a heart failure and immediately had a heart transplant - I mean how did he find a heart donor so fast? Of course, if he had a heart transplant, but if he had a heart failure then I guess it's likely he had a transplant.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Can we just bury him whatever his actual status?

[The Valkyrie]

You know what is also strange? Kim had a heart failure and immediately had a heart transplant - I mean how did he find a heart donor so fast? Of course, if he had a heart transplant, but if he had a heart failure then I guess it's likely he had a transplant.

Clones.

[Anomalocaris]

You know what is also strange? Kim had a heart failure and immediately had a heart transplant - I mean how did he find a heart donor so fast? Of course, if he had a heart transplant, but if he had a heart failure then I guess it's likely he had a transplant.

Did he ever have a heart to fail?