Twelve years ago, the young Kim Jong Un, 27 years old and chubby-cheeked, trudged alongside his father’s hearse on a snowy day. He looked at the floor, without paying attention to the cameras that were focused on him. With the sudden death of his father, he Third-generation heir to one of the last communist bastions in the world, he became the dictator at the head of North Korea and its 25 million inhabitants.
“Kim Jong Un’s regime will not last long,” his half-brother wrongly predicted to a Japanese journalist at the time. In the streets of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, criticism of his youth, inexperience and murky ancestry emerged. But he would soon be in charge of silencing them: negative comments towards the Kim dynasty are prohibited by decree.
And little has changed in the last decade. At least not for the better, as a few naive people expected, hoping that the young man’s government Kim on North Korea (which began on December 17, 2011), was open-minded and reformist, given his youth and education in the West. Washington bet on this, since failing that he would not know how to hold on to power and this would cause the regime to falter.
None of that happened. Kim Jong Un He has surpassed his father and grandfather in nuclear ambition, economic experimentation and bold diplomacy, solidifying his rule more quickly and surely than most at home and abroad could have imagined. In his exercise of power, the heir has not only purged hundreds who could pose a threat, including his uncle and his half-brother, whom he ordered to be murdered.
In parallel, it also drastically increased the war and cyber capabilities of North Korea, forcing world leaders, including the president of the United States, to recognize him as a rival to be feared. But the country’s economy is destroyed. The sanctions imposed after the missile tests increased food shortages and the discontent of a people who live under control.
Already close to 40 years old, Kim is approximately the age of his grandfather and founder of North Korea. Kim Il Sungwhen he began his rule of almost half a century over the country: from 1948 to 1994. Spokesmen for the regime insist that while presidents come and go in other parts of the world, the first 10 years of Kim Jong Un’s government are the rehearsal that set the stage for decades to come.
The government built everything from ski slopes to skyscrapers, and trade with China reactivated the internal market. In parallel, he tested many more missiles than his father and grandfather combined, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. “People had hopes for this young leader, but nothing changed,” said Gu Dae Myeong, an official in that early government, who ultimately decided to leave in 2016. “Under Kim Jong Un, control only intensified and became more and more meticulous,” he added.
In 2018, Kim ventured onto the world stage seeking relief from international sanctions to finally put his country on the path to economic development. But when those efforts failed, and his second summit with the president trump ended without an agreement, a turning point was marked for Kim to reconsider his ability as a statesman and return to exercising the policy of terror that put him on the world map.
He is convinced that only his long-range nuclear missiles are respected. And now he once again directs his threats towards Seoul, the capital of South Korea, and Washington. “If the enemy chooses military confrontation against the DPRK (North Korea), our army must strike a death Punch to completely annihilate them by mobilizing the strongest means without hesitation,” the North Korean dictator threatened. A promise that once again sets off alarm bells in the West.
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