Pak Pong Ju
Pak (L) (Photo: Xinhua)
Pak Pong Ju[i] is the deputy (vice) director of the CC KWP Light Industry Department (a position he held in the early 1990s) and a Candidate Member to the Party Central Committee (CC KWP). From September 2003 to his official dismissal in April 2007 Pak served as the DPRK’s Premier. He returned to the power center in 2010. Pak has personal and political ties to Kim Kyong Hui and Jang Song Taek, and has had extensive interactions with the PRC and ROK.
Pak was born in 1939. He began his career as a manager of the Ryongchon Food Factory in Ryongchon County, North Pyongan. He was elected a Candidate Member of the Party Central Committee (CC KWP) at the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980. He was appointed party secretary of the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex in July 1983, and in the 1980s served as a party manager of the DPRK’s chemical industries. He visited Central and East Europe in May 1987, visiting the former Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary.
Pak (C) in 2006 (Photo: Xinhua)
He became Kim Kyong Hui’s principal deputy at the CC KWP Light Industry Department in 1992 or 1993. From 1994 to 1998 Pak was her deputy director when Light Industry was consolidated into the party’s Economic Policy Inspection Department. He was a member of the funeral committees of Kim Il Sung and O Jin U. In 1998 he was elected a deputy (delegate) to the 10th Supreme People’s Assembly. At the first plenum of the 10th SPA he was appointed Minister of Chemical Industry.
Pak was elected to the 11th Supreme People’s Assembly and appointed Premier. He served until being suspended from office in June 2006 for misappropriation of funds. He was formally dismissed at a plenum of the 11th SPA in April 2007, replaced by Kim Yong Il, previously Minister Land and Marine Transport. Pak was allegedly part of a group of party and government leaders (mostly members of Jang Song Taek’s political patronage network removed from office due to their attendance at an opulent wedding. It is also alleged that Pak had fallen out of favor, or was undone, due to his support for new economic policies including an hourly wage system and the 2 July 2002 decree.
In one account of his departure as Premier, “it is said that his belongings that were taken out of the premier’s residence did not even fill up one small truck…this frugality that spoke well for his recent appointment to a major post.” Pak was sent to manage a cement factory, and may also have transferred to a clothing factory near Pyongyang. He most likely returned the power center in late 2009 or early 2010, with the increasing influence of Jang Song Taek and Kim Kyong Hui, particularly on economic matters. On 15 August 2010 Mainichi Shimbun reported that Pak was working in the central party, due to his ties to Jang and Kim. Pak was identified by his new title when KCBS broadcasted a story on the 50th anniversary of the Okryu Restaurant in Pyongyang.
Pak constitutes KJI’s new economic management group which is either working under or preparing for a transitional period in political leadership on one hand, while gradually implementing a new, externally-oriented economic policy and management (through the party) on the other. With Kim Kyong Hui and Jang Song Taek at its head, Pak is part of a group in the central party that includes technocrats and political managers such as Tae Jong Su, Hong Sok Hyong, Ri Kwang Gun and Jon Il Chun. Pak Pong Ju is most likely one of the officials behind the 13 August 2010 passage of new economic laws, of which labor rights and the protection of both SOE’s and other corporations in the DPRK.
[i] See Yonhap News Agency North Korea Handbook (Armonk, NY: 2003) pp. 870-71; “Who Controls NK?” North Korea A to Z . Seoul: Korean Broadcasting Station ; Mansourov, Alexandre Y. “Inside North Korea’s Black Box: Reversing the Optics” in DPRK Policy Elites (Kongdan Oh-Hassig, ed.) Alexandria, VA: IDA Paper P-3903; “Reinstatement of ex-DPRK Premier Suggests Succession Process Underway” Mainichi ; “Reformist N. Korean Premier Appears to Be Back in Power, Yonhap Says” Francis Yoon, Bloomberg News August 21, 2010 ; “N. Korean Ex-PM Pak Pong Ju Appears to be Back in Power” Yonhap News Agency August 21 2010
