Kim Jong-Un, the globally-known North Korean leader, is the youngest of Kim Jong II’s three sons, but kinship wasn’t the only factor that linked the current ruler of North Korea to his father, he used to accompany him on military inspections at a very young age and as soon as he got older, it was thought that he worked either for the Korean Workers’ Party, also known as KWP or the country’s ruling party, consequently, rumors began to circulate early in 2009 that he was being groomed as his father’s eventual successor as he was listed as a candidate for the Supreme People’s Assembly in 2009, and that in April he was given a post on the powerful National Defense Commission or NDC, as a matter of fact, the chairmanship of the NDC, defined in the constitution as the country’s highest office, was held by Kim Jong Il.
In addition, in September 2010 Kim Jong-Un was given the high rank of four-star general, although he was not known to have had any prior military experience and as it was expected, after the death of his father in December 2011, Kim Jong-Un was declared the country’s supreme leader, an unofficial title that nonetheless signaled his position as the head of both the government and North Korea’s military forces, moreover when in 2012 his status was validated by the acquisition of several official titles such as the first secretary of the KWP, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and chairman of the NDC, which was then the country’s highest bureaucracy authority.
The current leader of the northern party of the country soon began to develop his own strategy when it came to ruling his country, Kim’s national strategy of byungjin (often translated as “parallel development”), emphasized the development of the country’s economy along with its defense capabilities which in a matter of time became globally known as a ruthless and sharp acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear weapon program which had already advanced under his father’s rule.
In truth, by 2017 North Korea had conducted a total of six nuclear tests, including at least one of a device that North Korean officials claimed was small enough to mount on an intercontinental ballistic missile and that caused a war of words to erupt between Kim and previous U.S. President Donald Trump now that the US territory has become reachable by the Korean nuclear powers.
In the near-seven decades of North Korea’s existence, no leader had ever sat down for face-to-face talks with the President of the United States, but, starting in late 2017, all of that began to change.
The Trump White House agreed to start talking to the North Koreans with the aim of setting up talks between their leaders to take place in a neutral country eventually deciding on Singapore and setting a date for June 10, 2018.
Ahead of the talks, Kim undertook two trips to China, one in March and another in May and, while the exact topics of conversation were not made public, it is thought Kim was seeking advice from Xi Jinping on the best way to negotiate with the Americans, in addition, the trip marks his first forays abroad since becoming a leader.
The two shook hands, before sitting down for unprecedented three-way talks with South Korean President Moon Jae in during which the sides agreed to restart work towards denuclearization but, in spite of that, the talks didn’t get far because Trump was soon sucked into the 2020 election cycle, which he lost to Joe Biden who has shown little enthusiasm for renewing relations with Kim.
With Biden’s attention on China’s actions around Taiwan and Russia’s troop build-up on Europe’s eastern border, few expect any substantial progress on North Korean talks in the near future.
Furthermore, In an attempt to shore up his rule and secure his dynasty, Kim rapidly embarked on a purge of anyone suspected of being able to challenge him or his authority, dozens of high-ranking figures within the North Korean administration disappeared during the first years of Kim’s rule, with defectors smuggling gruesome stories out of the country about how they had been executed with anti-aircraft guns, mortar rounds, and flamethrowers.
Perhaps the best-known and most elaborate assassination involved Kim’s eldest brother, Kim Jong Nam, who collapsed and promptly died at Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia in 2017.
Having cemented his control on North Korea, Kim set about carving out an image for himself stepping out of his father’s shadow while signalling to the world and the country that he was his own man.
Perhaps the most symbolic moments were Kim’s two trips up Mount Paektu, North Korea’s highest mountain that is central to the Communist regime’s mythology, riding on the back of a white stallion.
State media said that the visits were to show ‘the consistent determination and will of our party to defend and carry forward for eternity the glorious revolutionary traditions which took roots in Mt Paektu.’
But that is far from the only time that Kim has put on attention-grabbing displays.
On the domestic front, the Party-state’s ruling ideology has shifted from a military-first line to a civilian ‘people-centered’ and Party-centered line, also, the tendency towards the re-centralization of economic management has become more pronounced amid the anti-pandemic measures that combined with the effects of international sanctions and environmental disasters have taken their toll on North Korea’s already poor humanitarian situation.
As there are no signs of easing restrictions after almost two years of self-imposed isolation, some begin to wonder what the prospects for North Korea’s domestic and foreign policy are going forward and how could tensions be defused on the Korean Peninsula given that denuclearization seems almost out of reach
References:
Kim Jong Un’s decade of rule, available at:
North Korea under Kim Jong Un, available at:
https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/north-korea-under-kim-jong-un-ten-year-assessment-32714
Kim Jong Un, available at:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kim-Yo-Jong
10 years of missiles, murder and economic misery, available at:
Kim’s decade in power, available at:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10304121/A-decade-Kim-Jong-dictators-10-years-power.html
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
