Kim Jong-un’s older half-brother was reportedly living under Chinese protection before he was killed.<\/b>
The Cold War-style assassination of Kim Jong-un\u2019s exiled half-brother, who had reportedly been living under Chinese protection in Macau, is likely to inflame existing tensions between Beijing and its ally Pyongyang, experts told The Diplomat.\u00a0
China reportedly viewed Kim Jong-nam, who shared a \u00a0father with the North Korean dictator, as a potential replacement for the current leader, who has tested Beijing\u2019s patience with repeated nuclear and missile tests and by executing his reform-minded uncle Jang Song-thaek, who had close relations with the county. In an interview in 2012, Yoji Gomi, a Japanese journalist who extensively interviewed the estranged Kim, said that Beijing viewed him as a \u201cpolitical card\u201d for the future.
As the first-born son of late dictator Kim Jong-il, Kim was once assumed to be the heir to the dictatorship but later fell out of favor, and in recent years he denied having any interest in power. After years of living outside North Korea, he was killed in an apparent poison attack at Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia\u00a0 on Monday.
Nam Change-hee, an international relations professor at Inha University near Seoul, said Kim\u2019s assassination was \u201canother slap on the face of Beijing,\u201d leaving it with the competing options of punishing its ally or accommodating the slight.
\u201cThe policy I expect Beijing will take is a combination of the two, meaning sending another warning signal by reducing aid temporarily but\u00a0simultaneously trying to\u00a0maintain communication with Pyongyang as long as Kim Jong-un does not directly damage China\u2019s security interests,\u201d he said.\u00a0
\u201cWe need to be reminded that\u00a0Beijing needs to focus on domestic agenda\u00a0and also other foreign policy problems like the Senkaku and South China Sea issues.\u201d
Michael Madden, the founder of North Korea Leadership Watch , said the killing came at an especially inopportune moment as the countries appeared to be trying to mend fences.\u00a0
\u201cJong-nam\u2019s demise occurred at the same time as the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea [North Korea] and People\u2019s Republic of China were shoring up their ties,\u201d Madden said. \u201cThey had been relatively distant from one another the last three to four years \u2014 even prior to Mr. Jang\u2019s execution \u2014 under Kim Jong-un. During the last few months there was an uptick in their conducting some public interactions and events.\u201d
Madden said, however, that China may feel constrained in pushing back against its neighbor.\u00a0
\u201cI do not think the PRC will react too strongly because that would betray the value which some in China\u2019s intelligence and diplomatic communities held Jong-nam,\u201d he said. \u201c\u00a0It may well serve as a test of China\u2019s tolerance on the recent public renewal of DPRK-PRC ties.\u201d
Robert Kelly, a political science professor at Pusan National University, said the fact that Beijing ultimately proved unable to unwilling to protect such a \u201cuseful wedge against Kim Jong-un\u201d hinted at as-yet unknown machinations behind the scenes. \u00a0
\u201cWhere was his operational security?\u201d he said. \u201cDoes that mean China has given up on threatening or leveraging Kim Jong-un? That China let go such a useful asset is telling, but we don\u2019t know what it means yet.\u201d<\/p>\n