Political experts on North Korea’s politics immediately speculated that Kim Jong-un had ordered the assassination of his older half sibling, who at one time had been the heir apparent and had been favored by China, the country’s ally and principal benefactor.
“Maybe Kim Jong-nam was about to do something drastic that would either compromise the regime or the family,” said Jae H. Ku, director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “By the nature of things in North Korea, the fact that he is in the bloodline represented a threat.”
Others were even more emphatic in their suspicion that Kim Jong-un had been responsible, partly because Kim Jong-nam had been publicly critical of the transfer of power that made Kim Jong-un the top leader after the death of their father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011.
“The apparent murder today of Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia by agents of his brother is the latest explosive turn in Pyongyang’s vicious palace intrigue,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist who specializes in North and South Korea at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “The question remains: Do these deadly measures secure his rule or serve to undermine it?”
There also was speculation that Kim Jong-un might have ordered Kim Jong-nam killed because China might have been planning to support him as a replacement for Kim Jong-un, who has angered Chinese leaders with his provocative weapons and missile tests.
“Kim Jong-nam reportedly has been Beijing’s favorite, which may mean one day the Chinese Communist Party may overthrow Kim Jong-un and install Kim Jong-nam,” said Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/world/asia/kim-jong-un-brother-killed-malaysia.html?_r=0
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