Editor's Note: This is part of a symposium asking what happens if Kim Jong-un died. To read the other parts of the series click here.

What happens next if Kim Jong-un suddenly dies? That depends on the solidarity of the North Korean elites. A North Korean contingency is most likely to occur when regime unity is undermined and the public is disgruntled with the system to a point of danger. As the regime passes the “tipping point,” a stage where it can no longer endure these developments, it will face a quickly deteriorating situation moving toward state collapse, or the end of the North Korean regime.

North Korea has retained its regime by more coercive means than any other state in the world. Hence, the most plausible tipping point for North Korea would emerge when anti-Kim forces within the North Korean regime have come together to overthrow him.

But, a somewhat tricky situation would be if Kim Jong-un had a natural death, and was not killed by anti-Kim forces. Then, pro-Kim forces would try to maintain their regime unity by making his sister Kim Yo-jong succeed Kim Jong-un or by forming a collective leadership that consists of top party and military leaders until she is ready to lead. Whether they will overcome that kind of critical transition will depend on how well they will be able to prevent anti-Kim Yo-jong forces from emerging in and around the new collective leadership. After all, she is young and lacks experience and charisma.

A more dangerous scenario is that the collective leadership is not able to handle the toughest internal and external environments compounded by the closed border due to the COVID-19. For instance, that closure is causing the North Korean economy to deteriorate rapidly. Economic sanctions are also being felt in such a gross manner. In this scenario, North Korean people could rise against them.

In addition, there might be some remaining anti-Kim factions that were possibly created by Kim Jong-un’s brutal purge and executions right after his father died in 2011. Kim killed even his uncle, Jang Sung-taek, who had a significant number of supporters within the power circle although most of them were eliminated after his death. But who knows? They might come back. Then, things could become out of control.

Sung-han Kim is a professor at Korea University and former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea.

Image: Reuters