Mick Hartley

Richard Lloyd Parry in today's Sunday Times sings the praises of Kim Jong-un. Of course he's under no illusions about the man's ruthlessness, and the brutality of life in North Korea, but he can't help but (sneakingly) admire the bastard and what he's achieved – As he turns 38, Kim Jong-un has the world where he wants it:

Nearing the end of his thirties, a time when many high-flyers succumb to the indignities of a mid-life crisis, the supreme leader of North Korea appears to be doing nothing of the sort. Kim Jong-un leads a broke and friendless nation that is struggling with sanctions, food shortages and the isolation imposed by Covid-19. And yet he turned 38 yesterday with the look of a man who is flourishing in his personal and professional lives.

Physically he has lost an impressive amount of weight, apparently from choice rather than anxiety or ill health — photographs in the past year show that the 5ft 7in dictator, who formerly weighed an estimated 22 stone, is dramatically thinner. But in other respects there are suggestions that he wants to be seen as a more substantial figure as he begins his second decade in power. Last year, he promoted himself to general secretary of the Workers’ Party, and in the autumn party documents started using the glamorous term “Kimjongunism” to describe his political philosophy.

At the end of last month he delivered a new year message without any of the usual bellicosity towards the outside world (it emphasised agriculture instead). Then, four days ago, his military scientists gave him an early birthday present by firing, for the second time, a short-range hypersonic ballistic missile, which could potentially dodge defence shields to bring nuclear annihilation to Tokyo or Seoul. His government has repeatedly, and disdainfully, rejected appeals to negotiate from the presidents of the United States and South Korea.

All the predictions from ten years ago, when he first took over from dad, the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, have been shown up as a load of wishful thinking. The country didn't collapse under the rule of the inexperienced boy-king, but neither did it see any kind of liberalisation. If anything the totalitarianism, brutality, and the Kim-worshipping culture have been strengthened. And the pursuit of nuclear weapons at the expense of all else.

By 2011, when his father died, the North had carried out two nuclear tests and was reckoned to have a handful of warheads, although not the means to propel them any great distance. Today, the Korean People’s Army has scores of nuclear bombs. A programme of rocket development has brought the capacity to mount them on missiles of all ranges — to South Korea, Japan and even, on the intercontinental Hwasong-16, Los Angeles or Washington.

These developments have incited international rage and alarm, and triggered intense economic sanctions too. But they have also brought otherwise unattainable international status, including three summit meetings with Donald Trump. It would once have been unimaginable that the leader of a small, almost bankrupt, pariah nation, the last surviving relic of the Cold War, could succeed in acquiring nuclear weapons — not the medium-range variety possessed by India, Pakistan and Israel, but the kind that can cross the Pacific Ocean — and that far from making him a pariah, they brought to the negotiating table the president of the United States.

Nuclear weapons provide a security such as no previous North Korean leader has enjoyed. Kim’s small nuclear arsenal and huge, but poorly equipped, conventional army could never bring victory against the immense combined forces of the US and South Korea. But the capacity to destroy even one American city, to raise to an unacceptable level the risk of an attack upon him, is the ultimate insurance policy.

The regime has succeeded in neutralising, or at least minimising, North Korea’s many and massive weaknesses. There are chronic food shortages, caused by a broken agriculture infrastructure, and a refusal to open up to international aid and trade. But the ruthless security apparatus prevents these from igniting serious unrest (public discontent is limited to the occasional rude graffiti, like the “Kim Jong-un is a son of a bitch” slogan that was reported last week to have been daubed on a wall in Pyongyang.)

The economic sanctions, especially the embargo on fuel, are undoubtedly hurting. But, having isolated itself so thoroughly from western investment and other kinds of influence, the North has in effect been sanctioning itself for decades. Even Kim’s friendlessness does not seem to matter: China’s president, Xi Jinping, regards him as an irresponsible rogue — but he will do all he can to prop up the regime because Beijing views the status quo as far preferable to the conflict, refugee crisis and strategic uncertainty that collapse could bring with it.

Apart from nuclear weapons, this is Kim’s greatest strength: that none of the important international players have any serious ideas about how to deal with him, other than the continuation of the status quo. The South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, is giving his all in his last four months in office to the idea of an symbolic “end-of-war declaration” that will do nothing to change the situation on the ground. Having invited the North to sit down and talk, and been rebuffed, the Biden administration is reprising the policy of Barack Obama — instead of Trumpian summitry, “strategic patience” — waiting for the day when, it is imagined, sanctions force Kim to see it all from Washington’s point of view.

There is no sign that this day is remotely close. The party ideologues have yet to set out the formal principles of Kimjongunism, but there is no sign that compromise will be among them. Kim’s successes have already surpassed the wildest imaginings of his enemies. In his new healthy, slimmed-down form, we can expect him to carry on for many birthdays and several decades to come.

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. With North Korea prediction is never wise. I wonder though about just how long the increased suffering of the people, and the very real threat of serious famine, can be repressed under the wildly sycophantic official propaganda. There must be a limit…

Still, there are some nice pictures of the great man:

"Phew, the smell!"
"If he can't be bothered to wash, at least he could use some deodorant."