Kim Jong-il’s eldest son ‘in financial trouble’

MOSCOW (Yonhap News) ― Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong-il, is having financial problems after his own country and China cut off funding over recent doubts he expressed about his younger brother’s grip on power, a Russian newspaper said.

According to the latest edition of Argumenty i Fakty, Kim Jong-nam was recently kicked out of his 17th-floor room at a luxurious hotel in Macao because he could not pay the $15,000 that was due.

Kim, believed to be in his early 40s, has been reported to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the Chinese enclave, after apparently falling out of favor with his father for attempting to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001.

The paper said he rents a luxurious apartment for his wife, lover and children, while he prefers to stay at top-rated hotels. A Chinese intelligence agency has paid for the rent, leaving the North Korean regime to pay for his gambling and other entertainment costs, the paper said, quoting government officials in Macao.

The financial difficulties started, however, after Kim told Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun in an e-mail last month that he has “doubts about how a young successor with some two years (of training as heir) can retain the 37 years of absolute power” wielded by his father who died on Dec. 17.

Kim’s youngest brother, Jong-un, has taken the helm of Pyongyang in line with their father’s plans to continue the hereditary power transition in the communist North.

Pyongyang cut off its funds to Kim Jong-nam as a punishment for his remarks, while China likely followed suit to avoid any conflict with the new Kim Jong-un regime, the Russian paper said.

The paper also offered an explanation for China’s support of Kim Jong-nam so far, saying Beijing was apparently making contingency plans to seat him in power.

“Considering that North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong-un suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, no one can guarantee what will happen to him in the future,” it said.

China, as North Korea’s key ally and benefactor, is regarded as the only country to have any considerable influence over the isolated nation.