My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and am now a writer who has

published three books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.

                               Right now in Malaysia, the two women who murdered former probable

North Korean leader (and exile) Kim Jong-nam are on trial. It will be interesting to see if they are

convicted or not. But this brings me to the question, "what if?" What IF Kim Jong-nam had become

the leader of North Korea as he was originally was supposed to have been? His father Kim Jong-il

changed his mind, and we now have a monster Kim Jong-un as North Korea's ruler. If Kim Jong-nam

had become ruler, then there might be great changes happening in North Korea now. Things like

people being able to have more freedom of movement, more choice in their lives (or choices at

all), and a loosening of allowing people to move to where they want and what job to hold would

be reality today. We know that did not happen, and Kim Jong-un killed his half-brother to make

sure that there would be no possibility of Kim Jong-nam succeeding him and changing North

Korea. I saw the same thing happen in China over 28 years ago. The pro-democracy movement 

that sprouted up could have changed the country, and the Chinese Communist Party itself. In

my book The Day China Cried, the reformist group in the Communist Party supported the

pro-democracy movement that had spread throughout the country and wanted enact important

political reforms that would have changed the face of China. Had the reformists won control of

the Chinese Communist Party, we would see a very, very different China today. A China that

would have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of

peaceful assembly that takes place in the United States, Canada, Japan and South Korea today.

But as in North Korea, this did not happen, and we now all face a malignant superpower China

that is bent in one form or another on world domination. Because of what did not happen we

live in a more dangerous world.