Chang Sung-taek

Chang Sung-taek, (born 2 February 1946; alternatively Jang Song-thaek) is a North Korean politician and the brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il. He is a leading figure in the North Korean government, and South Korean government officials and academic North Korea watchers suggested that he may have taken on de facto leadership over North Korea due to Kim Jong-il's ill health. Chang is currently Vice-Chairman of the National Defence Commission, a position considered second only to Kim Jong-Il.

He is concurrently director of the State Development Bank, director of the Taepung International Investment Group and director of the Taesong International Group.

Chang was born in Kangwon-do. He graduated from the Kim Il-sung Senior High School before leaving for Moscow, where he studied abroad between 1968 and 1972. Upon his return, he married Kim Kyong-hui, the younger sister of Kim Jong-il. The couple had a daughter, Chang Kum-song (1977–2006), who lived overseas in Paris as an international student; she refused an order to return to Pyongyang and then committed suicide in September 2006, reportedly due to Chang and his wife Kim's opposition to her relationship with her boyfriend.

Chang was formerly an instructor to the Pyongyang Party Committee, and later the vice director of the Workers' Party of Korea's Organisation and Guidance Department since 1982, being first assigned to youth policies and then to capital city construction. In 1989 he was co-opted in the WPK Central Committee as an alternate member, and promoted to full member in 1992, when he was also appointed first deputy director of the Organization and Guidance Department, with responsibility over security activities.

Chang had been identified by outside analysts as well as North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop as a possible successor to Kim Jong-il; however, on 25 November 2004, South Korea's National Assembly heard testimony that he had been purged from his position.

He re-emerged in March 2006, accompanying Kim Jong-il on an official visit to China. In October 2007, the Korean Central News Agency confirmed that Chang had been promoted to the newly recreated post of first vice-director of the Workers' Party of Korea, with oversight responsibility for the police, judiciary, and other areas of internal security; Jang attended South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun's luncheon during the latter's visit to the North. It was later revealed that Chang had been actually appointed director of the Administration Department, an old agency of the Workers' Party abolished in 1990 and re-created by splitting the Organization Department.

Chang was elected to the powerful National Defence Commission in April 2009; this was viewed as a signal that he could be a potential successor to Kim Jong-il.

In June 2010, in a session of the Supreme People's Assembly, Chang was elected as a vice-chairman of the National Defence Commission. The NDC is North Korea's de facto supreme decision making body. Thus Chang's promotion amounts to something of a executive deputy role, second only to Kim Jong-Il. It is speculated that the move was part of posturing to make Kim Jong-Il's son Kim Jong-un the next leader of North Korea. Chang's position in North Korean politics was also ostensibly boosted by the death of Ri Je-gang, a senior leader who was tipped by Kim Jong-il as a crucial overseer of the succession campaign.

Later, at the WPK Conference held in September 2010, he was appointed alternate member of the Politburo and confirmed Administration Department director at the first meeting of the Party Central Committee after 17 years.