Day: September 24, 2021

Myanmar’s junta has shut down phones and the internet in nearly two dozen townships in Chin state and Magway region to block the flow of information in areas where armed clashes between the military and People’s Defense Force (PDF) militias have intensified in recent weeks, residents said Friday.

On Thursday evening, cuts went into effect in Chin state’s Paletwa, Mindat, Matupi, Falam, Htantalang, Tedim, Tunzang, and Kanpetlet townships, as well as in the Magway townships of Myaing, Gangaw, and Htee Lin. The move stoked fear in residents who recalled similar tactics used by the military when it orchestrated a coup on Feb. 1 and expressed concern over a potential major offensive where they live.

A source in Chin state’s Mindat township told RFA’s Myanmar Service that all lines of communication were cut at around 6:00 p.m., affecting service for connections to all four of the country’s internet service providers—Telenor, MPT, Ooredoo, and Mytel.

“I think they did it to start a news blackout as fighting is continuing in the region,” they said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A resident of Paletwa township named Tun Wai told RFA that internet and phone services went out at around 7:00 p.m., which he said was strange because there had been no fighting between the military and local ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) until Thursday evening.

“I’m not sure how to say this, but I think it was because of the fighting across Chin state,” he said.

Myanmar’s military has attempted to justify its overthrow of the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government by claiming the party had stolen the country’s November 2020 ballot through voter fraud.

The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently repressed anti-coup protests, killing at least 1,123 people and arresting 6,748 others, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Paletwa township was the scene of severe fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and the military under the NLD government in June 2019, which led to what observers have said was history’s longest internet shutdown there and in nearby parts of Rakhine state. Fighting subsided by the end of 2020 and in February residents were able to use the internet again to access information about the rest of the country.

Locals said Thursday’s sudden outage could be linked to fighting between junta forces and anti-junta militias in Mindat, Matupi, Kanpetlet, and Thantlang townships in southern Chin state, along the border of Paletwa.

Other townships in Magway region are facing internet cuts due to the success of PDF forces in fighting the military, sources said.

A resident of Magway’s Myaing township told RFA on condition of anonymity that although there had been no recent clashes in the area, the internet was cut off after 6:00 p.m. Thursday, forcing all businesses that rely on the internet to cease operations.

“Ooredoo and MPT were the first to lose connections, and Telenor and Mitel were disconnected later,” he said.

“We can’t do anything without internet access, such as online cash transactions.”

Cutting communications

Residents of Magway’s Htee Lin township told RFA that separate branches of the PDF in nearby Gangaw and Myaing townships had been coordinating their resistance online and that the military sought to sever their communications link through the internet blackout.

The internet has been shut down in a total of 22 townships in Mandalay, Magway, and Sagaing regions, as well as in Kachin and Chin states, since Aug. 20.

Salai Za Op Lian, deputy executive director of the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO), said that cutting off the internet has threatened the public’s survival and amounted to a violation of basic human rights.

“People are fleeing the war and the internet is a support line for them to survive,” he said.

Over the past few months, the public has speculated that the junta may have been planning a major offensive, noting that most of the townships affected by the internet shutdown have shown strong resistance to military rule.

Friday marked the tenth day of an internet blackout in 10 townships of central Myanmar’s Mandalay, Sagaing, and Magway, regions where residents said they have faced more harassment and arrests by the junta.

The townships of Yinmarbin, Pale, Salingyi, Kani, Mingin, Ayardaw, and Butalin in Sagaing region; Mogok and Myingyan in Mandalay region; and Taungdwingyi in Magway region have all been centers of resistance to the junta since the February coup. Residents there told RFA that the internet shutdown had impacted access to crucial information, education, trade, and financial services.

“People who have to rely on the internet now face a big problem—their livelihoods depend on online access,” said a resident of Ayardaw township, who declined to be named due to security concerns.

“I can’t write advertisements now because I don’t have the internet, and now I have no income … Online shopping is also important in rural areas and now everything has come to a stop. You can’t simply rely on phone lines to communicate with one another.”

The source said he is now considering leaving his family behind and moving to an area where the internet is available so that he can continue to earn a living.

Increase in military harassment

In Sagaing region, the military has stepped up raids on villages and arrests of civilians that residents had previously been able to prevent with information accessed via the internet.

“Previously, we knew exactly when and how to avoid the enemy, but now we are constantly on our toes as it is no longer possible to know when or where they are coming or whether there’s any fighting going on around the region,” said a resident of Kani township.

“Without accurate information, it is very difficult to make any move. Things could be better if we regained internet access—even just a bit.”

A member of the anti-junta movement in Mandalay’s Myingyan township said the military is already making arbitrary arrests following the internet shutdown there.

“The number of arrests has risen since Sept. 14. If 50 people were arrested 10 days ago, it has now become 70,” he told RFA.

“There are increased guest-list checks in many areas and many arrests have been made. The mobile internet is completely down but our leaders are using text messages to exchange information.”

A resident of Sagaing’s Yinmabin township said shutting down the internet would not be enough for the military to remain in control of the country.

“The junta cut off the internet because they don’t want to relinquish power, but they can’t assume that they will be able to hold on to power by doing this,” he said.

“The people are too much against them. The more they act like this, the stronger the grievances will be. They won’t be able to rule us forever.”

Thinzar Shun Lei Yi of the Committee for the Development of Democracy (ACDD) said the junta’s decision to cut off the internet in areas where they face opposition amounts to a human rights violation.

“The resistance of the people cannot be suppressed by any means,” she said, noting that the year-long internet shutdown in Paletwa township and parts of Rakhine state had “only led to public hatred and resentment.”

“Just as the military’s plan of suppressing the opposition by cutting information off failed then, the junta’s current move will just create more enemies.”

Attempts by RFA to reach junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun for comment went unanswered Friday.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

A little more than 80 percent of COVID-19 vaccines in Indonesia come from China, while a fifth of all vaccines exported by the superpower have gone to the Southeast Asian country, officials said.

Indonesia is the largest recipient of Chinese vaccines, according to Beijing-based research firm Bridge Consulting, and that, one analyst said, does not showcase Jakarta’s much touted “free and active” foreign policy.

Jakarta on Friday received another two million doses of the vaccine made by China’s Sinovac Biotech, this time as a donation from Beijing and the pharmaceutical company, said Xiao Qian, China’s ambassador to Indonesia.

“So far, Sinovac and Sinopharm have sent 215 million doses of vaccine to Indonesia,” Xiao told an online news conference.

“It accounts for almost 20 percent of all vaccines exported by China in the same time period, and more than 80 percent of the total vaccines obtained by Indonesia.”

Overall, Indonesia has received 273 million doses of vaccines from a variety of drug makers worldwide, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said on Friday. These include doses produced by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Janssen.

Retno said international cooperation was key to ending the pandemic.

“Our diplomatic machinery continues to work, establishing cooperation in various forms so that our vaccine needs are fulfilled,” she told reporters.

But with 215 million of 273 million vaccine doses having come from China, it appears Indonesia’s diplomatic machinery has put most of its eggs, as it were, in one basket, according to international relations expert Teuku Rezasyah.

“Reliance on one supplier is not good,” Rezasyah, a lecturer at Bandung’s Padjadjaran University, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

The cases of Bangladesh and Thailand have proven that.

The South Asian country signed a huge deal for vaccines with an Indian company, but was then stuck without any shots for months when the manufacturer halted exports after a horrific second wave of COVID-19 hit India.

Closer to Indonesia, Thailand’s over-reliance on AstraZeneca’s vaccine, because a local manufacturer was awarded a contract to produce it, proved to be its undoing when the company couldn’t deliver enough or on time. The country is still behind in its inoculation campaign.

Rezasyah said Indonesia should have cast its net wide for vaccines from the get-go.

“We should have launched an international tender from the start,” he said.

“China understands that this [vaccine] business is very profitable and long-term. It’s been made easier because Indonesia and China also have a strategic partnership.”

Indonesia needs to engage more broadly with other nations for vaccine supplies, he said.

That would also be in line with the foundation of its foreign policy, Rezasyah said about the archipelago nation that is one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Declining Sinovac efficacy?

Additionally, research conducted in Indonesia and released in August showed that the Sinovac vaccine, named CoronaVac, provided protection against COVID-19 – a clinical trial showed its efficacy was 65 percent.

But the study by the research and development wing at the Ministry of Health also found that the vaccine was less effective at protecting against death and severe illness in the April-June period, compared with the previous three months.

The vaccine prevented 79 percent of deaths during April-June, down from 95 percent in January-March, said Siti Nadia Tarmizi, spokeswoman for the government’s COVID-19 task force.

It prevented 53 percent of hospitalizations during April-June, down from 74 percent January to March.

Siti did not provide a reason for the drop, but infections that led to the highly contagious Delta variant-related second wave may well have begun in the April-June period.

As of Friday, more than 84.8 million people in the country had received at least the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 47.7 million of them fully vaccinated, according to data from the health ministry.

Of those fully vaccinated with the Sinovac jabs, nearly 900,000 received a third, non-Sinovac dose.

Indonesia said in July that it planned to give a third vaccine shot to many of the 1.47 million medical workers inoculated with Sinovac, using a jab developed by Moderna – an American drug firm – to protect them from the Delta strain.

An Indonesian volunteer group that keeps tabs on pandemic data, LaporCOVID-19, had at the time said that some health workers fully vaccinated with Sinovac had died from COVID-19. Thailand made a similar announcement that month.

Meanwhile, Indonesia has not yet received any of the 20 million doses of the Sputnik vaccine promised by Russia, even though the country’s Food and Drug Monitoring Agency has issued an emergency use authorization for the jab.

“I can’t respond in detail because this is still under negotiation,” the Russian ambassador to Jakarta, Lyudmila Vorobieva, told a virtual press conference on Wednesday.

“There are formalities that need to be completed.”

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Cambodia on Friday defended its decision to hire a U.S lobbying firm to advocate for the government and boost its reputation abroad, while the opposition party and an NGO said the money being paid is a waste of the national budget.

An RFA investigative report on Thursday disclosed that the government signed a contract with Washington, D.C., firm Qorvis Communications for U.S. $69,300 a month to “provide strategic communications and media relations services in support of increasing public awareness along with travel and tourism” for Cambodia.

The contract was signed by Cambodia’s ambassador to the United States, Chum Sounry, on Sept. 15, according to a filing made two days later and viewable on a website that records the registration of agents who represent foreign governments in the U.S.

The move is an attempt by the increasingly autocratic government of Prime Minister Hun Sen to try to salvage Cambodia’s tarnished reputation over human rights violations and crackdowns on the country’s political opposition, independent media, and NGOs, which prompted U.S. sanctions and the suspension of trade privileges with the European Union.

The Cambodian government also signed contracts with two other lobbying firms in 2019.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan told RFA’s Khmer Service that he was unaware of the details of the deal, calling it a legitimate agreement similar to ones made by other countries that have hired lobbyists to advocate abroad for them.

“It is a norm and a source of income for the U.S.A,” he said.

RFA could not reach the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for comment.

Um Sam Ath, a senior official with the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), told RFA that the government should use the money from the national budget to help people affected by the coronavirus pandemic rather than pay a foreign firm to improve its image in the U.S.

The Cambodian government hired Qorvis to try to prevent the U.S. from imposing further sanctions on officials for human rights violations, Um Sam Ath said, adding that he believes the effort will fail to convince the Biden administration to stop such action.

Only the restoration of democracy and respect for human rights will prevent additional sanctions, he said.

“Phnom Penh’s regime should not spend money on the lobbying firm to protect its reputation,” said Um Sam Ath.

“On the contrary, it should restore democracy by holding free and fair elections and allowing the CNRP to participate, and restore human rights. Only then will the international community regain confidence in the government,” he said.

Yong Kim Eng, president of the People’s Centre for Development and Peace, said that the Cambodian government should use diplomatic channels to lobby the Biden administrations, rather than spending money to try to boost its image globally.

“It’s sad because Cambodians are still living under the poverty level, and many people are being affected by COVID-19,” he said.

“We should use the budget to develop the country,” Yong Kim Eng said.

“In general, Cambodia should reflect on its policies and try to improve them rather than hiring a lobbying firm. If there are no improvements, then the lobbyists won’t be able to help.”

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Around 450 soldiers and police in Myanmar have broken with the military junta over the past two weeks to join the resistance movement in opposition to the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected government, defector groups told RFA.

On Sept. 7, the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), made up opposition figures including former lawmakers who were part of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party and lost power in the military takeover, called on soldiers and police to join the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) of government employees who refuse to support the junta.

According to the NUG’s ministry of defense and People’s Embrace, a group for defectors from junta security forces, 453 soldiers and police officers answered the call, bolstering the defectors’ ranks to around 3,000.

“Since the announcement of the People’s Revolution on Sept. 7, an average of 33 people a day have contacted us,” Naing Htoo Aung, the permanent secretary of the NUG’s ministry of defense, told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The 453 new personnel represented a 20 percent rise over the two-week period, the secretary said.

Prior to that announcement, a total of about 1,500 soldiers and 1,000 police defected according to statistics from People’s Embrace and the Facebook page of the Myanmar Police CDM Channel, another group of defectors.

RFA attempted to contact junta spokesman Maj. Gen Zaw Min Tun for comment, but he could not be reached.

The Myanmar Police CDM Channel said that among the 453 newcomers, about 50 had already joined the CDM and about 400 were waiting for the right opportunity to leave their units.  

Another defector soldier group, the People’s Bosom, told RFA that many junta soldiers are starting to realize they are on the wrong side.

“There are more and more soldiers and police personnel who don’t like what the army is doing to the people and they are becoming aware of the unrelenting efforts made by the NUG for the country,” Capt. Lin Htet Aung of the People’s Bosom said.

The captain said that if more police and soldiers defect, the junta will become weaker and relinquish its power with less bloodshed. 

A member of a military family who spoke on condition of anonymity told RFA that the military has laid down tighter movement orders for soldiers and their families to prevent them from joining the CDM. 

Getting a pass to go off base is now impossible except for health reasons, and even with a pass they are allowed to leave with only the clothes on their backs. 

“They don’t even allow merchants on base. Soldiers and families have to go through a series of major steps to leave the family quarters,” the source said.

“You can only leave if you are allowed to go. Even if you get permission, you cannot stay overnight.”

The military also does its part to cultivate political opinions that align with the junta among families living on base.

Military officers often tell soldiers’ families that Aung San Suu Kyi had failed to do anything to improve the country over the past five years, and that it was not acceptable that a woman should be in charge of the military leaders, another source who lives on a military base told RFA.

Despite the junta’s best efforts, he said, many in the military are skeptical of the coup.

The junta in an official statement said its leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing met with military family members in Lashio on Sept. 19, nearly eight months after the coup, to explain that he had taken over state power because of voter registration errors during the 2020 elections, a claim that the junta has never proven.

A resident of Myingyan in the central region of Mandalay, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said soldiers should join the CDM because they are now fighting not for the country and the people, but for the military dictators.

“They have to join the CDM. When a person does something, it should be according to his beliefs. Those working under the junta are not fighting for the state or for the people. So what they are doing is totally meaningless,” the Myingyan resident said.

“It would be wrong for them to fight for the junta. They cannot earn the love and respect of the people, and there will be no dignity or financial gains for them,” said the Myingyan resident.

 Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

A top Chinese law enforcement official has called on police and local governments to step up their use of big data, artificial intelligence, and networked security cameras to stem potential social unrest in times of “growing uncertainty.”

Chen Yixin, secretary general of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s political and legal affairs commission that overseas domestic security, called on law enforcers to “lay a solid foundation for social governance and security now.”

He told a meeting on grassroots governance on the southern province of Guangdong on Sept. 19 that the move would implement instructions from CCP leader Xi Jinping to “study new measures to improve grassroots social governance capabilities.”

The security situation at home and overseas was getting more complex, with a growing risk of instability, Chen was quoted by state media as saying.

“Grassroots social governance has faced some new situations and new problems, which require us to conduct in-depth research [and] continue to innovate with ideas and new measures,” he said, citing sexual assault of “left-behind children” and human trafficking as top of the priority list.

“For serious criminal crimes in rural areas, it is necessary to overcome the problem of insufficient police force in grassroots police stations,” Chen said.

The conference took place in Shenzhen, where authorities in Guangming district are part of a pilot program of measures giving law enforcement powers to administrative officials, and officials from across China are learning how to implement it, according to the state-backed social media news channel WePolitics.

The growing emphasis on “grid-based” law enforcement and monitoring comes amid growing coverage in state-run media of the need to prevent espionage, Chinese political commentator Willy Lam told RFA.

But he said rising unemployment rates had led to growing concerns over social instability, and different branches of government are increasingly working together to prevent “mass incidents” from happening.

“For example, in Dongguan city in Guangdong, a lot of factories have closed, and there are no new orders coming in,” Lam said. “If the local security point hears about something, for example, someone saying they are going to organize a demonstration, they are obliged to inform the local police station.”

“The authorities are hoping that these disputes can be nipped in the bud before those people get as far as the municipal government offices, preferably at neighborhood committee level,” he said.

Grid management system

Local officials at township, village, and neighborhood level have been empowered to enforce the law under an amended administrative punishment law that took effect in July 2021, as well as operating a vastly extended “grid management” system of social control in rural and urban areas alike.

The system will be based on a “grid” system of management, a system of social control that harks back to imperial times, and which will allow the authorities even closer control over citizens’ lives, the opinion document issued jointly by the CCP central committee and the country’s State Council said.

According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up neighborhoods into a grid pattern with 15-20 households per square, with each grid given a dedicated monitor who reports back on residents’ affairs to local committees.

Neighborhood committees in China have long been tasked with monitoring the activities of ordinary people in urban areas, but the grid management system turbo-charges the capacity of officials even in rural areas to monitor what local people are doing, saying, and thinking.

According to a recruitment advertisement posted online in 2018, the task of a grid monitor for a neighborhood committee is to fully understand the residents of their grid, including exactly who lives where, which organizations they belong to, and the sort of lives they lead.

They will be asked to mediate in family conflicts and other disputes and to carry out “psychological intervention” when required, as well as to report back on “hidden dangers” in their grid, as well as all the aspects of residents’ lives, political opinions, and complaints, the advertisement said.

That system is now being “modernized,” with full data sharing between organizations and widespread automation the goal, according to a July 11 opinion document from the central leadership.

Chen Yixin told the Shenzhen conference that there are still “blind spots” in smart surveillance systems in some places, and called for more cameras to be added to the Golden Shield nationwide network-security system to eliminate them, as well as the use of big data to monitor potential risks.

Total surveillance

Beijing-based dissident Ji Feng said the CCP is aiming for total surveillance of the population.

“Once you walk out of your front door, nothing is secret,” Ji told RFA. “There is a camera right next to [my door], so they basically know when I go out and when I come home.”

“They can monitor us using existing equipment, searching for our data, including facial recognition,” he said. “Facial scans are needed for lots of things now.”

“They are trying to improve on the systems that already exist; they call it optimization.”

Jiangsu-based current affairs commentator Zhang Jianping said a society that has no independent judiciary and huge inequality is forced to rely on such methods.

“Without that, so-called social stability can only be maintained through informing, monitoring, and exposing [people],” Zhang told RFA.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

The shrill attacks against South Korea and the United States that have made international headlines for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s younger sister are viewed inside the country as evidence of her arrogance and inexperience, government officials told RFA.

Kim Yo Jong, believed to be 33, has made a name for herself in recent years for her comments in state media that lob crude insults at Seoul, Washington and refugees from her family’s regime.

Some of her greatest hits include calling people who escape from North Korea “mongrel dogs” and “human scum,” warning the Biden Administration not to “cause a stink in its first step,” and calling South Korean President Moon Jae-in “a parrot raised by America.”

In her most recent statements, Kim offered a yellow light on President Moon’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly this week calling on North Korea, the U.S. and China to officially end the Korean War, saying it was “admirable” but setting conditions for formally ending the 1950-53 conflict.

“What needs to be dropped is the double-dealing attitudes, illogical prejudice, bad habits and hostile stand of justifying their own acts while faulting our just exercise of the right to self-defense,” she said in a statement.

“Only when such a precondition is met, would it be possible to sit face to face and declare the significant termination of war,” Kim Yo Jong said.

Although public dissent is scarce and heavily punished, North Koreans grumble regularly in interviews with RFA about their economic plight, corruption, and incessant government demands for labor and cash.

Many North Koreans, including some government officials, are not fans of Kim Yo Jong, either.

“The people don’t think too highly of Kim Yo Jong because she always shows up and spits out harsh words at every important occasion in foreign relations,” an official in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service.

Since her brother’s rule began in 2011, Kim Yo Jong’s rise to power in her own right led to her becoming an alternate member of the Politburo in October 2017.

‘Truly weird group’

She was introduced on the international stage when, as part of a North Korean delegation to the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, she was seated near then U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during the opening ceremony.

International media took notice of the seating arrangement and widely published video and images of Kim and Pence, but they did not exchange words.

She spent a year away from the politburo starting in April 2019 but was reinstated in April 2020. At the time, her brother was rumored to be having health issues and some experts believed she could have been an option to replace him if he were to die.

But she was demoted during the ruling Korean Workers’ Party’s Eighth Party Congress in January, becoming a regular member of the Party’s Central Committee, with her rank reduced from first deputy director to deputy director.

Though she is now only one of many deputy directors of the Central Party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, Kim Yo Jong’s statements on inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S. relations still boost her public profile, said the Ryanggang official.

“Kim Yo Jong serves as a calculated spokesperson to reveal Kim Jong Un’s position and views, and by speaking out bitter statements about foreign relations, especially about North-South relations, she is internally acting to specifically emphasize that she is the sister of Kim Jong Un,” said the source.

In June of last year, one day after North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office within its territory, Kim Yo Jong responded to a speech made two days earlier by South Korea’s Moon, calling it “sophism full of shamelessness and impudence.”

“Then, who has professed blind and dumb to our advices to adopt attitude and stand of a master responsible for the north-south relations and thrown away trust and promise just like a pair of old shoes?” she said.

In January, she referred to the South Korean government as a “truly weird group hard to understand,” after Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff revealed that North Korea had held a midnight military parade at the opening of the eighth congress of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party.

“They are the idiot and top the world’s list in misbehavior as they are only keen on things provoking world laughter,” said Kim Yo Jong.

‘No achievements or experience’

RFA reported in May that government officials were scared to be in her presence because rumors that she had officials executed for getting on her nerves had spread.

“Perhaps because deputy director Kim is still young, it seems that she doesn’t know when to hold her tongue, and she also lacks humility,” the Ryanggang official said.

“Officials often say at private gatherings, ‘I hope that Kim Yo Jong doesn’t show up here and there and act up,’” said the source.  

Another source, an official in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, told RFA that Kim Yo Jong’s lofty position would be impossible if not for her proximity to her brother, and noted that although their father also put his sister in a position of power, she actually deserved it.

“Kim Jong Il put his only sister Kim Kyong Hui on the Politburo, but that wasn’t until 2010 when she was over 60, and long after she had loyally helped him for a very long time,” said the second source.

“Kim Jong Un hastily promoted Kim Yo Jong when she was in her late 20s when she had no achievements or experience… This is so different from what his father did,” said the North Hamgyong official.

Another contrast between the two situations, is that Kim Yo Jong is very visible to the North Korean public, whereas her aunt mostly stayed out of headlines.

“Kim Kyong Hui did not reveal herself often and quietly assisted Kim Jong Il… but Kim Yo Jong is not like that. No matter how important her work is, it does not look good to the general public that she shows up here and there and acts lightly,” said the second source.

Kim Jong Un lived abroad in his childhood and does not have many people he can absolutely trust within the regime, according to the second source.

“It seems he thinks that the only person he can trust is his sister. But it goes against the party’s ideology and principles that prohibit nepotism,” said the second source.

Still in office after gaffes

The second source said that Kim Yo Jong’s recent demotion might have been a punishment from her brother.

“He may have felt at that time that it was not good for his sister to show off everywhere…but she still remains in power,” said the second source.

Hosting the Kim siblings is a nerve-wracking experience for government officials, the source said.

“High-ranking officials are always anxious and feel like they are walking on thin ice when they are around Kim Jong Un. They feel like they have to read his mind. How stressful it must be to have to be careful around Kim Yo Jong as well, because she’s always hovering around him,” said the second source.

Experts remain divided on the possibility of Kim Yo Jong becoming the country’s ruler if her brother dies. Some say that her increased exposure in recent years is a clear indication that she is next in line.

“In my view, Kim Jong Un had made the decision to make Kim Yo Jung his successor,” Joseph Detrani, former US Special Envoy for Six Party Talks with North Korea, told RFA.

“Keeping the leadership in the Kim family is important for Kim Jung Un and it would resonate with the people and senior leaders in the North.  Some may view her, if Kim Jong Un were to pass suddenly, as too inexperienced, but being part of the Kim family would address those concerns,” Detrani said.

Soo Kim of the RAND Corporation told RFA that true extent of her influence “remains largely speculative” despite her growing presence on the scene.

“We can assume that since she remains in the leadership, has been seen in public during high-profile events, and serves from time to time as her brother’s mouthpiece, Kim Yo Jong maintains potential in the regime’s leadership,” (->.)

Kim Yo Jong’s recent demotion was taken by some as an indication that she is not the successor, but her influence does not appear to have changed, according to Su Mi Terry of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“In terms of succession, I still think that she’s somebody that is most likely to succeed, even though you can’t say that for sure because they don’t really have a succession plan,” Terry told RFA.

“Given that their focus is so much on this blood line, I do think that she’s definitely the most likely contender if something were to happen to Kim Jong Un,” Terry said.

The lack of a named successor could cause major problems for the regime, Ken Gause of the Virginia-based CNA thinktank told RFA.

“There would probably be some sort of collective leadership in which Kim Yo Jung would be part of that, representing the Kim family equities behind the scenes, but it’s no guarantee that she would be able to step in and take over for him,” said Gause.

“It will really depend on the power dynamics at the time that he becomes incapacitated or dies that will determine who will rise to the top,” Gause said.

Reported by Chang Gyu Ahn and Sangmin Lee. Translated by Jinha Shin. Written in English by Eugene Whong.