Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** China frets over North Korea.  The country most concerned by the downfall of North Korea’s No 2 figure, Kim Jong-un’s uncle Jang Song-thaek, is China.  One well-placed source in Beijing noted this week: “Jang was an iconic figure in North Korea, particularly with economic reform and innovation.  He is the man China counted on to move the economy in North Korea.  This is a very ominous signal.”

The 67-year-old Jang was well known in China, which he visited on a number of occasions, and he was seen in Beijing as a reliable advocate for Chinese-style economic reform, which Beijing is pushing hard as a necessary panacea for North Korea.  As the South China Morning Post noted earlier this week: “Jang was one of China’s few high-level North Korean interlocutors.”

The way in which Jang was dismissed was very public and humiliating, in contrast to Pyongyang’s usual secretive manoeuvrings, and the reason seems fairly clear.  It is the 30-year-old Kim Jong-un telling the world that he is the undisputed leader of North Korea.

*** China tells Japan it is watching.  Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has received drafts of the new defence guideline and the mid-term defence programme.  The guideline prescribes Japan’s defence policy for the next 10 years while the mid-term defence programme looks at procurement for the next five years.  Final version of the plans will be presented next week.

Included in the build-up plan is a new amphibious unit designed to be able to recapture remote islands seized by an enemy power, and plans to double the number of 20-strong fighter jet squadrons stationed at Naha base in Okinawa.  Japan also plans to deploy surveillance drones at Naha along with E-2C early warning aircraft which are at the moment confined to Japan’s Misawa base in the north.

The strategy paper will review the ban on the export of weapons in a move designed to increase the capacity of Japan’s defence industry.

China responded to the drafts by warning: “China is closely watching Japan’s security and policy direction.  Japan’s unreasonable criticism of China’s normal maritime activities and its hyping up of the China threat has hidden political motives.”