Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China announced on Wednesday that its parliament will open a key annual session on May 22, signalling that Beijing sees the country returning to normal after being reduced to a near-standstill for months by the COVID-19 epidemic.
During the gathering of the National People’s Congress in the capital, delegates will ratify major legislation, and the government will unveil economic targets, set defence spending projections and make personnel changes. The ruling Communist Party also typically announces signature policy initiatives.
The session was initially scheduled to start on March 5 but was postponed due to COVID-19, which has infected nearly 83,000 people and killed more than 4,600 on the mainland after emerging late last year in the central city of Wuhan.
As the epidemic has subsided, economic and social life gradually returned to normal, making it possible for the congress to convene, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the standing committee of the NPC, the legislature’s top decision-making body, as saying.
The committee also appointed Huang Runqiu as the new minister for ecology and environment, a post vacated when predecessor Li Ganjie became deputy Communist Party chief for Shandong province earlier this month, Xinhua reported.
Tang Yijun was also named as the new justice minister to replace Fu Zhenghua, who has reached the retirement age of 65 for ministers.
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to parliament, has proposed starting its annual session a day before the parliamentary session opens.
Analysts expect China to roll out additional fiscal stimulus in order to cushion the blow from COVID-19, which has developed in to a worldwide pandemic that some fear will trigger a severe global recession.
China’s economy contracted for the first time on record during the January-March period, when the government imposed severe travel and transport restriction to curb the spread of the epidemic.
Parliament is also expected to discuss the anti-government protests in Hong Kong, amid growing speculation that Beijing take steps to strengthen its grip on the city.
It is unclear how long parliament and its advisory body will meet for this time, and people familiar with the matter have told Reuters that this year’s annual sessions could be the shortest in decades due to COVID-19 concerns. Usually more than 5,000 delegates descend on Beijing from all over China for at least 10 days.
Beijing city plans to ease quarantine rules as early as Thursday, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters, ahead of the key political meetings.
People arriving in the capital from other parts of China will no long have to be quarantined for two weeks unless they come from high-risk areas such as Heilongjiang in the north and some parts of Guangdong in the southeast, the sources said.
The richest man in China opened his own Twitter account last month, in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak. So far, every one of his posts has been devoted to his unrivalled campaign to deliver medical supplies to almost every country around the world.
“One world, one fight!” Jack Ma enthused in one of his first messages. “Together, we can do this!” he cheered in another.
The billionaire entrepreneur is the driving force behind a widespread operation to ship medical supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators to many places that have been elbowed out of the global brawl over life-saving equipment.
But Ma’s critics and even some of his supporters aren’t sure what he’s getting himself into. Has this bold venture into global philanthropy unveiled him as the friendly face of China’s Communist Party? Or is he an independent player who is being used by the Party for propaganda purposes? He appears to be following China’s diplomatic rules, particularly when choosing which countries should benefit from his donations, but his growing clout might put him in the crosshairs of the jealous leaders at the top of China’s political pyramid.
Other tech billionaires have pledged more money to fight the effects of the virus – Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is giving $1bn (£0.8bn) to the cause. Candid, a US-based philanthropy watchdog that tracks private charitable donations, puts Alibaba 12th on a list of private Covid-19 donors. But that list doesn’t include shipments of vital supplies, which some countries might consider to be more important than money at this stage in the global outbreak.
The world’s top coronavirus financial donors
How Alibaba compares to the top five. No one else other than the effervescent Ma is capable of dispatching supplies directly to those who need them. Starting in March, the Jack Ma foundation and the related Alibaba foundation began airlifting supplies to Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and even to politically sensitive areas including Iran, Israel, Russia and the US.
Ma has also donated millions to coronavirus vaccine research and a handbook of medical expertise from doctors in his native Zhejiang province has been translated from Chinese into 16 languages. But it’s the medical shipments that have been making headlines, setting Ma apart.
“He has the ability and the money and the lifting power to get a Chinese supply plane out of Hangzhou to land in Addis Ababa, or wherever it needs to go,” explains Ma’s biographer, Duncan Clark. “This is logistics; this is what his company, his people and his province are all about.”
A friendly face
Jack Ma is famous for being the charismatic English teacher who went on to create China’s biggest technology company. Alibaba is now known as the “Amazon of the East”. Ma started the company inside his tiny apartment in the Chinese coastal city of Hangzhou, in the centre of China’s factory belt, back in 1999. Alibaba has since grown to become one of the dominant players in the world’s second largest economy, with key stakes in China’s online, banking and entertainment worlds. Ma himself is worth more than $40bn.
Officially, he stepped down as Alibaba’s chairman in 2018. He said he was going to focus on philanthropy. But Ma retained a permanent seat on Alibaba’s board. Coupled with his wealth and fame, he remains one of the most powerful men in China.
Media caption The BBC’s Secunder Kermani and Anne Soy compare how prepared Asian and African countries are
It appears that Ma’s donations are following Party guidelines: there is no evidence that any of the Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation donations have gone to countries that have formal ties with Taiwan, China’s neighbour and diplomatic rival. Ma announced on Twitter that he was donating to 22 countries in Latin America. States that side with Taiwan but who have also called for medical supplies – from Honduras to Haiti – are among the few dozen countries that do not appear to be on the list of 150 countries. The foundations repeatedly refused to provide a detailed list of countries that have received donations, explaining that “at this moment in time, we are not sharing this level of detail”.
However, the donations that have been delivered have certainly generated a lot of goodwill. With the exception of problematic deliveries to Cuba and Eritrea, all of the foundations’ shipments dispatched from China appear to have been gratefully received. That success is giving Ma even more positive attention than usual. China’s state media has been mentioning Ma almost as often as the country’s autocratic leader, Xi Jinping.
AFP
So far…
Over 150 countries have received donations from Jack Ma, including about:
120.4mface masks
4,105,000testing kits
3,704ventilators
Source: Alizila
It’s an uncomfortable comparison. As Ma soaks up praise, Xi faces persistent questions about how he handled the early stages of the virus and where, exactly, the outbreak began.
The Chinese government has dispatched medical teams and donations of supplies to a large number of hard-hit countries, particularly in Europe and South-East Asia.
However, those efforts have sometimes fallen flat. China’s been accused of sending faulty supplies to several countries. In some cases, the tests it sent were being misused but in others, low-quality supplies went unused and the donations backfired.
In contrast, Jack Ma’s shipments have only boosted his reputation.
“It’s fair to say that Ma’s donation was universally celebrated across Africa,” says Eric Olander, managing editor of the China Africa Project website and podcast. Ma pledged to visit all countries in Africa and has been a frequent visitor since his retirement.
“What happens to the materials once they land in a country is up to the host government, so any complaints about how Nigeria’s materials were distributed are indeed a domestic Nigerian issue,” Olander adds. “But with respect to the donation itself, the Rwandan leader, Paul Kagame, called it a “shot in the arm” and pretty much everyone saw it for what it was which was: delivering badly-needed materials to a region of the world that nobody else is either willing or capable of helping at that scale.”
Walking the tightrope
But is Ma risking a backlash from Beijing? Xi Jinping isn’t known as someone who likes to share the spotlight and his government has certainly targeted famous faces before. In recent years, the country’s top actress, a celebrated news anchor and several other billionaire entrepreneurs have all “disappeared” for long periods. Some, including the news anchor, end up serving prison sentences. Others re-emerge from detention, chastened and pledging their allegiance to the Party.
“There’s a rumour that [Jack Ma] stepped down in 2018 from being the chairman of the Alibaba Group because he was seen as a homegrown entrepreneur whose popularity would eclipse that of the Communist Party,” explains Ashley Feng, research associate at the Centre for New American Security in Washington DC. Indeed, Ma surprised many when he suddenly announced his retirement in 2018. He has denied persistent rumours that Beijing forced him out of his position.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Ma discussed trade with then-President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017
Duncan Clark, Ma’s biographer, is also aware of reports that Ma was nudged away from Alibaba following a key incident in January 2017. The Chinese billionaire met with then-President-elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower, ostensibly to discuss Sino-US trade. The Chinese president didn’t meet with Trump until months later.
“There was a lot of speculation of time that Jack Ma had moved too fast,” Clark says. “So, I think there’s lessons learned from both sides on the need to try to coordinate.”
“Jack Ma represents a sort of entrepreneurial soft power,” Clark adds. “That also creates challenges though, because the government is quite jealous or nervous of non-Party actors taking that kind of role.”
Technically, Ma isn’t a Communist outsider: China’s wealthiest capitalist has actually been a member of the Communist Party since the 1980s, when he was a university student.
But Ma’s always had a tricky relationship with the Party, famously saying that Alibaba’s attitude towards the Party was to “be in love with it but not to marry it”.
Even if Ma and the foundations connected to him are making decisions without Beijing’s advance blessing, the Chinese government has certainly done what it can to capitalise on Ma’s generosity. Chinese ambassadors are frequently on hand at airport ceremonies to receive the medical supplies shipped over by Ma, from Sierra Leone to Cambodia.
China has also used Ma’s largesse in its critiques of the United States. “The State Department said Taiwan is a true friend as it donated 2 million masks,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry tweeted in early April. “Wonder if @StateDept has any comment on Jack Ma’s donation of 1 million masks and 500k testing kits as well as Chinese companies’ and provinces’ assistance?”
Perhaps Ma can rise above what’s happened to so many others who ran afoul of the Party. China might just need a popular global Chinese figure so much that Ma has done what no one else can: make himself indispensable.
“Here’s the one key takeaway from all that happened with Jack Ma and Africa: he said he would do something and it got done,” explains Eric Olander. “That is an incredibly powerful optic in a place where foreigners often come, make big promises and often fail to deliver. So, the huge Covid-19 donation that he did fit within that pattern. He said he would do it and mere weeks later, those masks were in the hands of healthcare workers.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Ma at an Electronic World Trade Platform event with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last year
Duncan Clark argues that Ma already had a seat at China’s high table because of Alibaba’s economic heft. However, his first-name familiarity with world leaders makes him even more valuable to Beijing as China tries to repair its battered image.
“He has demonstrated the ability, with multiple IPOs under his belt, and multiple friendships overseas, to win friends and influence people. He’s the Dale Carnegie of China and that certainly, we’ve seen that that’s irritated some in the Chinese government but now it’s almost an all hands on deck situation,” Clark says.
There’s no doubt that China’s wider reputation is benefiting from the charitable work of Ma and other wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs. Andrew Grabois from Candid, the philanthropic watchdog that’s been measuring global donations in relation to Covid-19, says that the private donations coming from China are impossible to ignore.
“They’re taking a leadership role, the kind of thing that used to be done by the United States,” he says. “The most obvious past example is the response to Ebola, the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The US sent in doctors and everything to West Africa to help contain that virus before it left West Africa.”
Chinese donors are taking on that role with this virus.
“They are projecting soft power beyond their borders, going into areas, providing aid, monetary aid and expertise,” Grabois adds.
So, it’s not the right time for Beijing to stand in Jack Ma’s way.
“You know, this is a major crisis for the world right now,” Duncan Clark concludes. “But obviously, it’s also a crisis for China’s relationship with the rest of the world. So they need anybody who can help dampen down some of these those pressures.”
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean and Chinese officials on Tuesday cast doubt on reports North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was ill after media outlets said he had undergone a cardiovascular procedure and was in “grave danger”.
Daily NK, a Seoul-based speciality website, reported late on Monday, citing one unnamed source in North Korea, that Kim was recovering after undergoing the procedure on April 12. The North Korean leader is believed to be about 36.
CNN cited a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the matter as saying Washington was “monitoring intelligence” that Kim was in grave danger after surgery. Bloomberg quoted an unnamed U.S. official as saying the White House was told that Kim took a turn for the worse after the surgery.
However, two South Korean government officials rejected the CNN report without elaborating on whether Kim had undergone surgery. The presidential Blue House said there were no unusual signs coming from the reclusive, nuclear-capable state.
Kim is the unquestioned leader of North Korea and the sole commander of its nuclear arsenal. He has no clear successor and any instability in the country could be a major international risk.
RELATED COVERAGE
Factbox: Questions hang over North Korea succession amid reports on Kim health
The state KCNA news agency gave no indication of the whereabouts of Kim in routine dispatches on Tuesday, but said he had sent birthday gifts to prominent citizens.
An official at the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department, which deals with North Korea, told Reuters the source did not believe Kim was critically ill. China is North Korea’s only major ally.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing was aware of reports about the health of Kim, but said it does not know their source, without commenting on whether it has any information about the situation.
South Korean shares exposed to North Korea tumbled and the Korean won fell on the reports. The won traded down more than 1% against the dollar even as South Korean government sources said Kim was not gravely ill.
U.S. stock futures were trading 0.5% lower, but it was not clear how much of that weakness was owing to the collapse in U.S. oil prices and consequent concerns over global demand.
Daily NK said Kim had been admitted to hospital on April 12, just hours before the cardiovascular procedure, as his health had deteriorated since August due to heavy smoking, obesity and overwork.
It said he was now receiving treatment at a villa in the Mount Myohyang resort north of the capital Pyongyang.
“My understanding is that he had been struggling (with cardiovascular problems) since last August but it worsened after repeated visits to Mount Paektu,” a source was quoted as saying, referring to the country’s sacred mountain.
Accompanied by senior North Korean figures, Kim took two well-publicised rides on a stallion on the snowy slopes of the mountain in October and December.
KIM’S HEALTH KEY TO STABILITY
An authoritative U.S. source familiar with internal U.S. government reporting on North Korea questioned the CNN report that Kim was in “grave danger”.
“Any credible direct reporting having to do with Kim would be highly compartmented intelligence and unlikely to leak to the media,” a Korea specialist working for the U.S. government said on condition of anonymity.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, declined to comment on the reports of Kim’s health.
“We are regularly gathering and analysing information about North Korea with great concern,” he said. “We will keep gathering and analysing information regarding North Korea by collaborating with other countries such as the U.S.”
Kim’s potential health issues could fuel uncertainty over the future of the reclusive state’s dynastic rule and stalled denuclearisation talks with the United States, issues in which Kim wields absolute authority.
With no details known about his young children, analysts say his sister and loyalists could form a regency until a successor is old enough to take over.
Speculation about Kim’s health first arose following his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of its founding father and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.
On April 12, North Korean state media reported that Kim Jong Un had visited an airbase and observed drills by fighter jets and attack aircraft.
Two days later North Korea launched multiple short-range anti-ship cruise missiles into the sea and Sukhoi jets fired air-to-surface missiles as part of military exercises.
The missile launches were part of the celebrations for Kim’s grandfather, Seoul officials said, but there was no North Korea state media report on his attendance or the tests.
Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult, especially on matters concerning the country’s leadership, given tight controls on information. There have been false and conflicting reports in the past on matters related to its leaders.
Kim is a third-generation hereditary leader who rules North Korea with an iron-fist, taking over the titles of head of state and commander in chief of the military since late 2011.
In recent years Kim has launched a diplomatic offensive to promote both himself as a world leader and his hermit kingdom, holding three meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump, four with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and five with China’s President Xi Jinping.
He was the first North Korean leader to cross the border into South Korea to meet Moon in 2018. Both Koreas are technically still at war, as the Korean War of 1950-53 ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Kim has sought to have international sanctions against his country eased, but has refused to dismantle his nuclear weapons programme, a steadfast demand by the United States.
Fans greeted the team as they arrived in Wuhan via train
Chinese Super League team Wuhan Zall made an emotional homecoming after being unable to return for three months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Players had initially stayed at their winter training camp in Spain when the virus peaked in Wuhan in January.
After a prolonged transit in Germany, they landed in Shenzhen on 16 March and underwent three weeks’ quarantine.
They were greeted by fans when they arrived in Wuhan by train on Saturday evening.
“After more than three months of wandering, the homesick Wuhan Zall team members finally set foot in their hometown,” the team said on the Twitter-like Weibo.
Fans, dressed in the team’s orange colours, sang and gave the players flowers as they arrived home for the first time in 104 days.
Players will now spend time with their families before training resumes.
The team had first left Wuhan in early January to start preparing for the Super League season.
By the time they arrived in Malaga, residents in Wuhan were living under strict lockdown measures, and there were no planes or trains in or out of the capital.
Coach Jose Gonzalez told Spanish media at the time that the players “are not walking viruses, they are athletes” and asked for them not to be demonised.
The Chinese Super League was set to begin on 22 February but it has been postponed.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China ordered on Saturday that anyone in Wuhan working in certain service-related jobs must take a coronavirus test if they want to leave the city.
The order comes after the central city, where the coronavirus emerged late last year, lifted a 70-day lockdown that all but ended the epidemic there.
People in Wuhan work in nursing, education, security and other sectors with high exposure to the public must take a nucleic acid test before leaving, the National Health Commission said in an order.
The government of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is capital, will pay for the tests, the commission said.
Since the city relaxed its lockdown restrictions people who arrived in there before Chinese New Year, when the virus was peaking in China, are allowed to go back to their homes.
People working in other sectors aiming to leave Wuhan are encouraged to take voluntary tests before going.
Within seven days of arrival at their destinations, people who can present test results showing they do not carry the virus, as well as a clean bill of health on a health app, can go back to work.
Everyone else will have to spend 14 days in quarantine before returning to work.
Authorities have worked with the China’s tech giants to devise a colour-based health code system, retrieved via mobile app, that uses geolocation data and self-reported information to indicate one’s health status.
Wuhan will speed up its efforts to investigate asymptomatic coronavirus cases and confirm the presence of antibodies in people, which might suggest immunity, the commission said.
Wuhan, which accounts for 60% of infections in China and 84% of the death toll as of Saturday, has been testing inhabitants aggressively throughout the virus’ breakout and many companies had already been asking workers from the city to undergo tests before resuming work.
Wuhan revised up its death toll from the coronavirus by 1,290 on Friday, taking the city’s toll to 3,869, because of incorrect reporting, delays and omissions, especially in the chaotic early stages of the outbreak, authorities said.
China national death toll is 4,632 from 82,719 cases.
Participants learn about the construction of Shanghai West Bund in Shanghai, east China, Dec. 7, 2019, before attending the upcoming 2019 South-South Human Rights Forum. (Photo by Wang Xiang/Xinhua)
SHANGHAI, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) — Officials and scholars from more than 70 Asian, African and Latin American developing countries, as well as the United Nations, visited Shanghai on Saturday before attending the upcoming 2019 South-South Human Rights Forum.
The forum, hosted by the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will be held in Beijing from Dec. 10 to 11.
According to the Beijing Declaration issued at the first South-South Human Rights Forum held in Beijing in 2017, participants agreed that the right to subsistence and the right to development were the primary basic human rights.
During the one-day trip in Shanghai, the officials and scholars, from countries including Laos, Brunei, South Africa, Mexico and Mauritius, visited the city’s financial district and the World Expo Museum, snapped pictures of local residents’ life scenes on the bank of the Huangpu River, and investigated the progress of waste sorting in ordinary residential streets. They were impressed by the prosperous and orderly development of the mega city.
“I think China is becoming more open and confident about human rights. The changes I saw here are examples of the great improvements in the Chinese people’s rights to subsistence and development,” said Davina Sigauta Rasch, director of Corporate Service of the Ombudsman Office in Samoa, who studied international economics and trade from 2009 to 2013 at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
She said that compared with 10 years ago, China has made significant progress in the emerging fields such as high-speed railways and mobile payments, which directly improved people’s lives. China is not only developing itself, but also helping other developing countries, she said.
Her idea was echoed by Lionel Vairon, CEO of CEC Consulting in Luxembourg and also a senior research member of the Charhar Institute, a private think tank in China.
Over the past 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, great achievements which have attracted worldwide attention have been made, he said, adding that the international community should not ignore China’s progress in human rights out of ideological misunderstanding and prejudice.
“In the future, global governance must make a choice between the policy of strong-power hegemony and the path of a community with a shared future for humanity. And the latter is the wisdom China has contributed to the world,” he said.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
South Korea, China cast doubt on reports North Korean leader Kim gravely ill
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean and Chinese officials on Tuesday cast doubt on reports North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was ill after media outlets said he had undergone a cardiovascular procedure and was in “grave danger”.
Daily NK, a Seoul-based speciality website, reported late on Monday, citing one unnamed source in North Korea, that Kim was recovering after undergoing the procedure on April 12. The North Korean leader is believed to be about 36.
CNN cited a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the matter as saying Washington was “monitoring intelligence” that Kim was in grave danger after surgery. Bloomberg quoted an unnamed U.S. official as saying the White House was told that Kim took a turn for the worse after the surgery.
However, two South Korean government officials rejected the CNN report without elaborating on whether Kim had undergone surgery. The presidential Blue House said there were no unusual signs coming from the reclusive, nuclear-capable state.
Kim is the unquestioned leader of North Korea and the sole commander of its nuclear arsenal. He has no clear successor and any instability in the country could be a major international risk.
RELATED COVERAGE
The state KCNA news agency gave no indication of the whereabouts of Kim in routine dispatches on Tuesday, but said he had sent birthday gifts to prominent citizens.
An official at the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department, which deals with North Korea, told Reuters the source did not believe Kim was critically ill. China is North Korea’s only major ally.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing was aware of reports about the health of Kim, but said it does not know their source, without commenting on whether it has any information about the situation.
South Korean shares exposed to North Korea tumbled and the Korean won fell on the reports. The won traded down more than 1% against the dollar even as South Korean government sources said Kim was not gravely ill.
U.S. stock futures were trading 0.5% lower, but it was not clear how much of that weakness was owing to the collapse in U.S. oil prices and consequent concerns over global demand.
Daily NK said Kim had been admitted to hospital on April 12, just hours before the cardiovascular procedure, as his health had deteriorated since August due to heavy smoking, obesity and overwork.
It said he was now receiving treatment at a villa in the Mount Myohyang resort north of the capital Pyongyang.
“My understanding is that he had been struggling (with cardiovascular problems) since last August but it worsened after repeated visits to Mount Paektu,” a source was quoted as saying, referring to the country’s sacred mountain.
Accompanied by senior North Korean figures, Kim took two well-publicised rides on a stallion on the snowy slopes of the mountain in October and December.
KIM’S HEALTH KEY TO STABILITY
An authoritative U.S. source familiar with internal U.S. government reporting on North Korea questioned the CNN report that Kim was in “grave danger”.
“Any credible direct reporting having to do with Kim would be highly compartmented intelligence and unlikely to leak to the media,” a Korea specialist working for the U.S. government said on condition of anonymity.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, declined to comment on the reports of Kim’s health.
“We are regularly gathering and analysing information about North Korea with great concern,” he said. “We will keep gathering and analysing information regarding North Korea by collaborating with other countries such as the U.S.”
Kim’s potential health issues could fuel uncertainty over the future of the reclusive state’s dynastic rule and stalled denuclearisation talks with the United States, issues in which Kim wields absolute authority.
With no details known about his young children, analysts say his sister and loyalists could form a regency until a successor is old enough to take over.
Speculation about Kim’s health first arose following his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of its founding father and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.
On April 12, North Korean state media reported that Kim Jong Un had visited an airbase and observed drills by fighter jets and attack aircraft.
Two days later North Korea launched multiple short-range anti-ship cruise missiles into the sea and Sukhoi jets fired air-to-surface missiles as part of military exercises.
The missile launches were part of the celebrations for Kim’s grandfather, Seoul officials said, but there was no North Korea state media report on his attendance or the tests.
Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult, especially on matters concerning the country’s leadership, given tight controls on information. There have been false and conflicting reports in the past on matters related to its leaders.
Kim is a third-generation hereditary leader who rules North Korea with an iron-fist, taking over the titles of head of state and commander in chief of the military since late 2011.
In recent years Kim has launched a diplomatic offensive to promote both himself as a world leader and his hermit kingdom, holding three meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump, four with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and five with China’s President Xi Jinping.
He was the first North Korean leader to cross the border into South Korea to meet Moon in 2018. Both Koreas are technically still at war, as the Korean War of 1950-53 ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Kim has sought to have international sanctions against his country eased, but has refused to dismantle his nuclear weapons programme, a steadfast demand by the United States.
Source: Reuters
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