On May 5 North Korea moved its official national time clock 30 minutes forward to reconcile with the time of estranged brother in South Korea. Recently, a Korean Summit was also held, where the roly-poly Pyongyang leader—the 34-year-old third-generation Swiss-educated Kim Jong Un toasted around the tables with a wide-toothed smile.
Earlier, Kim sent his sister Kim Jo Yong to an unprecedented visit and participation of the North in the South Korean Winter Olympics and even reportedly upstaged US vice president with her unadulterated grace.
The new Kim Jong Un’s “charm offensive” has given the heir of a 68-year-old “war” with the south with a fresher face rather than that of a cruel despot. At the recent summit, Kim, a known chain smoker, was no light-and-puff and acknowledged his failed poverty-for-nukes economy by advising his counterpart President Moon Jae-in to fly into Pyongyang because “our roads are bad.”
Kim showed his other face—that of a sophisticated, knowledgeable leader during the summit but with the usual security idiosyncracies. He reportedly brought his own pencil and pen.
Everything he touched was wiped off for fingerprints’ record and had his own toilet so that “the waste he left behind cannot be diagnosed for health prognosis.”
It seems the once irascible, saber rattling leader has shifted 360 degrees to a fine diplomat-statesman interested in bringing back his hermit state to a “normal one with foreign investments.”
He probably realized that raising his nation’s nuclear capability at the expense of the people’s stomach and prosperity would eventually sow the seeds of its own destruction. He would have created his own national security risk.
Analysts claim Kim is studying the economic reforms of former straight jacketed economies like China and Vietnam which became GDP growth performers to suit his own designs. North Korea’s recent liberalization of state-owned firms resulted in a respectable GDP growth of 3.9 percent. Is the change for real?
Kim, who assumed leadership in 2011 after his father’s death, had proven his philosophy of byunging or “parallel advance” correct—having achieved both nuclear capability and a working economy go together. By posturing that North Korea can obliterate cities in South Korea, Japan and the United States with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the ploy resulted in bringing his foes to the negotiating table.
Now, Kim is toying with a “denuclearization gambit” in exchange for military security and lifting of economic sanctions, a subject that will likely be raised at the scheduled meeting with President Donald J. Trump. The sudden turnabout from the heinous Mr. Hyde, however, has its share of skeptics.
Image credits: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP