DBWI: Kim Jong Il survives and misses Ryongchon train explosion in 2004

We all know what happened. On April 22, 2004, at Ryongchon, North Korea, some 3000 people died when flammable cargo exploded, claiming the life of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il when he returned from a meeting in China.

North Korea severed all telephone lines to the rest of the world and began a communications blackout to prevent citizens from learning of the disaster, and to prevent foreign reporters from reporting of the incident.

The incident triggered a succession crisis: who was to be the next leader? Kim Jong Nam was considered to be a successor until 2001 when he was caught using a fake passport and tried to visit Tokyo Disneyland. Kim Jong Chul wasn't considered to be masculine enough. And Kim Jong Un was just 21 years old.

Jang Sung-taek and Kim Kyong-hui were temporarily in command.

The South Korean government put its military on high alert because of the political instability. Trigger-happy North Korean soldiers fired on a defector trying to cross the DMZ and chased them, until South Korean soldiers fired at the troops, sparking a one-week long border incident with artillery being fired at both sides, air strikes launched at each other, and South Korean ships sinking North Korean submarines. Eventually a cease-fire was declared.

However, a cadre of North Korean generals were unhappy with the situation that Jang Sung-taek and Kim Kyong-hui had allowed the border incident to escalate to such a manner, and launched a palace coup with the entire Kim family arrested.

Subsequently, after installing a junta, in a bid to secure their own power, they wanted to prove to the country that the country was strong and they were in control, demand further aid from the outside world, and stave off further border provocations. As a result, they had an above ground nuclear test performed in 2005, with the Kim family in chains and at the epicenter (with television cameras close up), and with the entire nuclear test/execution televised and broadcast to the outside world.

So what would have happened if Kim Jong Il survived? Would the North Korean economy be better? Would relations with the outside world be better or not?
 
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North Korea wouldn't currently be within the beginnings of a revolution for one thing. China completely writing them off and actually meeting with South Korea for an agreement on a bufferzone DMZ probably wouldn't have happened either.
 
The situation and relations with other countries would be bad but still would not be as extreme as they are today, nor hell Putin longer tolerate this behavior from North Korea .
 
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