Kim Jong-Un

Kim Jong-Un (born January 8, 1984?, North Korea) North Korean political official who succeeded his father, Kim Jong Il, as leader of North Korea (2011– ).

Childhood and rise to power

The youngest of Kim Jong Il’s three sons, Kim Jong-Un lived most of his life out of the public eye, and little was known about him. Reportedly educated in Gümligen, Switzerland, at the International School of Berne, he went on to study at Kim Il-Sung National War College in P’yŏngyang from 2002 to 2007. As a young adult, Kim Jong-Un began accompanying his father on military inspections. It was thought that he worked either for the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP; the country’s ruling party) or in the army’s General Political Bureau; both organizations were involved in surveillance of government officials.

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North Korea: The rise and rule of Kim Jong-Un

Rumours began to circulate early in 2009 that he was being groomed as his father’s eventual successor. He was listed as a candidate for the Supreme People’s Assembly in 2009, and that April he was given a post on the powerful National Defense Commission (NDC); the chairmanship of the NDC, defined in the constitution as the country’s highest office, was held by Kim Jong Il. By mid-2009 Kim Jong-Un was being referred to within the country by the title “Brilliant Comrade,” and in June it was reported that he had been named head of the State Security Department, the government agency responsible for political control and counterintelligence. That year he also reportedly married Ri Sol-Ju. 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. The timing of his appointment was considered significant, as it came shortly before the first general meeting of the KWP since the session in 1980 at which his father had been named Kim Il-Sung’s successor. Over the next year his own position as successor became clearer.

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. In April 2012 his status was validated by the acquisition of several official titles: first secretary of the KWP, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and chairman of the NDC, which was then the country’s highest bureaucratic authority. Kim’s national strategy of byungjin (often translated as “parallel development”), which emphasized the development of the country’s economy along with its defense capabilities, was officially adopted during a 2013 meeting of the KWP central committee. In June 2016 the congress of the Supreme People’s Assembly revised the constitution to broaden and solidify Kim Jong-Un’s position. The revisions created a new organization, the State Affairs Commission, with Kim as its head. The new commission replaced the NDC as North Korea’s most powerful governing agency.

Leader of North Korea

The early years of Kim’s reign were characterized by a ruthless consolidation of power and the sharp acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. In December 2013 Kim executed his uncle Jang Song-Thaek, saying that he had “removed the scum” from the KWP. Jang was a member of Kim Jong Il’s inner circle and had served as a virtual regent for the younger Kim after his father’s death. Jang’s execution also marked a break with Beijing, as Jang had long been an advocate of closer ties with China. Although Jang was the highest-profile official to be purged by Kim, defectors and South Korean intelligence services reported that people who had displeased the regime were being executed on a routine basis. In several cases, individuals who reportedly had been killed in a spectacularly grisly fashion resurfaced years later; such instances provided a clear illustration of just how difficult it was to obtain accurate information about events inside North Korea.

Under Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program had advanced in fits and starts. The country’s first underground nuclear detonation, in October 2006, came just months after a series of ballistic missile tests, but observers characterized these early forays as middling successes at best. After February 2013, which saw the first nuclear test of the Kim Jong-Un regime, the pace of both underground detonations and long-range missile tests quickened dramatically. 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. With a significant part of the mainland United States now theoretically within range of a North Korean nuclear attack, a war of words erupted between Kim and U.S. Pres. Donald Trump.

While Washington and P’yŏngyang engaged in a steady exchange of insults and bombastic rhetoric, Kim was initiating an unlikely charm offensive of sorts at home. The election of Democratic Party of Korea candidate Moon Jae-In as president of South Korea in May 2017 had opened the door for possible reengagement between North and South Korea. Moon had overseen previous “sunshine” policy overtures toward the North during the administration of South Korean Pres. Roh Moo-Hyun, but the escalation of the North Korean nuclear program led Moon to adopt a much more hawkish tone once in office. Nevertheless, in the weeks before the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in P’yŏngch’ang (Pyeongchang), South Korea, the two countries initiated a dialogue that led to North and South Korean athletes marching into the opening ceremonies as a single body and under a flag that depicted a unified Korea. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-Jong, attended the games, becoming the first member of North Korea’s ruling family to visit the South since the end of the Korean War. In a historic meeting with Moon on February 10, Yo-Jong delivered a handwritten note from her brother that invited the South Korean president to visit him in P’yŏngyang “at the earliest date possible.”

The following month Kim hosted members of Moon’s administration at a dinner in P’yŏngyang, the first such meeting he had held with senior South Korean officials since taking power in 2011. At that time, Kim stated that he was open to discussing the elimination of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal if the United States was willing to guarantee the security of North Korea and his regime. That announcement was followed by talk of an unprecedented summit between Kim and Trump, which the Trump administration indicated would take place in or before May 2018. On April 27, 2018, Kim and Moon met for a historic summit at the “peace village” of P’anmunjŏm. It marked the first time that the leaders of the two Koreas had met face-to-face in more than a decade, and the pair discussed the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and the conclusion of an armistice that would officially end the Korean War.

By mid-May the details of the meeting between Kim and Trump had begun to crystallize. The summit was scheduled to be held in Singapore. However, a fresh war of words broke out between Washington and P’yŏngyang. Expanding on earlier comments from national security adviser John R. Bolton, U.S. Vice Pres. Mike Pence threatened that North Korea’s government could meet the same fate as deposed and slain Libyan Pres. Muammar al-Qaddafi. North Korean officials responded that Pence’s statement was “ignorant and stupid.” On May 24 Trump announced that he was pulling out of the meeting, and Kim’s government immediately adopted a conciliatory tone, urging Trump to reconsider. Eight days later Trump reversed himself and announced that the summit would proceed as planned. On June 12, 2018, for the first time in history, the leaders of the United States and North Korea met face-to-face. Kim pledged to work “toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” while Trump promised to end joint U.S.–South Korea military exercises.