hankyoreh

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

Ever seen me in a picture with my grandfather?

I’m going to talk about myself for a moment here. It’s not something I’m particularly eager to mention, but if you don’t know, you’re not going to get the Kim Jong-un approach to leadership. The moment I was declared successor to my father came during the third WPK representatives’ meeting on Sept. 28, 2010. I was named general of the Korean People’s Army, vice chairman of the WPK Central Military Commission, and a member of the WPK Central Committee. They showed pictures of me the next day in the Rodong Sinmun and on Korean Central Television. It was the first time my face and name were announced to the outside world.

This meeting came 44 years after the second party representatives’ meeting in Oct. 1966, and 30 years after the preceding sixth WPK congress in Oct. 1980. My father passed away suddenly on Dec. 17, 2011, and it was at the fourth WPK representatives’ meeting on Apr. 11, 2012, that I was elected first WPK secretary and leader of North Korea.

According to the South Korean Ministry of Unification, my date of birth is Jan. 8, 1984. That’s the date on the passport I used when I attended the International School of Berne in Switzerland (Aug. 1998 to fall 2000). Some people have put the date as early as 1982 or 1983. I’m not obliged to tell you which is right, so let’s move on. All of you talk about me being the “third generation of leadership,” but my situation is a bit different from my father’s. He’d been active in the party since the ’60s and achieved a lot before taking power. I hadn’t. Prior to 2010, there wasn’t anything shared with the outside world about my experience in the party, the administration, or the military.

People have talked about how I look more like my grandfather than my father. And that’s actually been something conscious on my part. But as recently as his death in 1994, my grandfather didn’t actually know I existed. I never met him, as you might guess. That’s why no news outlet in North Korea has ever shown a picture of me with him. If there were one, they would have used it by now.

I’m not going to talk about how I “prepared” to take over as successor in North Korea. It may help, though, if you consider the deeper meaning behind the fact that no image has yet surfaced of me accompanying my father on one of his “field guidance” visits prior to 2010.

The reason I want to bring up all these details about our family history is to remind you that my “leadership base” wasn’t nearly as solid as my grandfather’s or father’s when I first took power. When I moved to have us declared a “nuclear power” in the preamble to the Constitution in 2012, when I formally adopted the parallel development approach to economic and nuclear development in 2013, and when I enacted a “Nuclear State Act” (“On More Firmly Establishing Status as a Defense Nuclear Power,” Supreme People’s Assembly, Apr. 1, 2013), part of that was my attempt to establish a stable leadership base as quickly as possible. By legislating my strategic goals for “North Korea under Kim Jong-un,” I was trying to sidestep any controversy by showing the country and the world that I wasn’t a weak leader. Sorry, but I’m not really in a position to show much flexibility yet. Flexibility is for South Korea and the US, at least for now. What am I supposed to do? It’s the hand I was dealt.

Does that mean I’m planning to live off the nuclear card until I’m gone? Well, I’d like that, for obvious reasons. I don’t want the people of North Korea to follow in the footsteps of Libyans or Iraqis. That said, it’s nothing to get down about. You can’t always get what you want. The sage Heraclitus once said that “the only constant is change.” You want me to inspire the belief that North Korea can survive without a nuclear deterrent? If so, maybe you’ll think twice. Someone once said that “the beauty of diplomacy lies in changing the other side’s strategy.” But you’re not going to change the North’s decisions, or mine, with something unilateral. Want a hint? Remember that government statement North Korea released after the fourth nuclear test, when it said it “could not halt its nuclear development or abandon nuclear weapons even if the sky fell down”? Those were the lines everyone quoted. But there was also a qualification that came before it: “so long,” I said, “as the US’s atrocious policies of hostility against North Korea are not eradicated.” Now, I can understand people misunderstanding the North’s statements to the outside world when they don’t look closely at the “ifs.” In that sense, I hope my hint helps a bit.

It’s about time for me finish up here. I’m actually quite busy preparing for the party convention that’s scheduled for early May. It’s the first one in 36 years, and I need to declare a vision for the “Kim Jong-un era.” So I’ll end with a word of advice. South Korea’s presidents, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, made a big mistake when they rejected the June 15 and Oct. 4 Joint Declarations like they were the plague. I could say the same for the decision to cut off tourism at Mt. Keumgang and halt economic cooperation. The details are right there in the data from South Korea’s own Ministry of Unification and the Chinese government’s general administration of customs: in 2007, the last year of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, trade between North Korea and the South was nearly equal to North Korea-China trade, at 91% (US$1.798 billion inter-Korean, US$1.974 billion North Korea-China). By 2014, it had fallen to 37% (US$2.343 billion inter-Korean, US$6.364 billion North Korea-China). In seven years, North Korea-China trade had more than tripled, while trade between the North and South remained stagnant. Even there, 99% of that came from projects with the Kaesong Industrial Complex. What you’re seeing is South Korea letting itself lose its grip with “sanctions” while China takes full advantage of the North’s resources and workforce. Sure, it’s uncomfortable for North Korea to depend so much on China, but what do you expect? Without China, everybody else would be champing at the bit to take advantage of the North. And how does any of this benefit South Korea, anyway? Does it do any good to chew away at the South’s future by hating the North? You’re the ones living there. Surely you recognize that your path forward economically lies in encouraging economic cooperation and opening up the North economy. You really ought to think about what the wise choice is.

Oh, and what do you think about our decision last Aug. 15 to announce our own “Pyongyang time”? Now there’s a difference of 30 minutes between North and South. We said it was because of the “crime committed by wicked Japanese imperialists,” but do you think that’s all there was to it? You can wait until later to hear my answer. Thanks for listening, anyway. I’m sure it was a chore. See you around.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]