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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C), accompanied by his wife Ri Sol-Ju (L), enjoying a demonstration performance given by the newly organized Moranbong band in Pyongyang, on July 6, 2012. The young North Korean leader has been described as having a 'human touch'. (KNS/AFP/GettyImages)
The ghost of Deng Xiaoping may lurk in Pyongyang, with signs that the world’s youngest head of state is trying to shake up his isolated and impoverished nation.
From the sudden dismissal of his top military leader, on grounds of “illness,” to a pop music show featuring American icons Mickey Mouse and Rocky Balboa, to a novel guest-worker program allowing North Koreans to earn hard currency in China, Kim Jong Un is taking a firm grip on power even as he loosens strictures and tells officials to try new things.
With a million-man army and nuclear weapons program, North Korea remains a source of uncertainty and instability, with many questions about whether Kim Jong Un can bring the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea peaceably into the 21st century. But the example of Deng Xiaoping’s early efforts to modernize and moderate a deeply ideological China suggests promising parallels.
Some North Korea experts didn’t expect the young heir to make it this far. After Kim Jong Il died in December, former National Security Council Director Victor Cha gave North Korea “several months” before total collapse. After all, young Kim’s shotgun succession had been rushed into action only in 2008—unlike his father who had been carefully groomed for decades before becoming the Supreme Leader. Pyongyang’s desperate transfer of power to the world’s only communist king was expected to be the straw that would, at long last, break the camel’s back.
No such luck. North Korea is still there, with the young, inexperienced Kim at the helm. He’s been an exceptionally active leader, giving major policy speeches and pressing the flesh with citizens, soldiers, cadres and schoolchildren.
Kim showed a new direction in governance by giving a speech. His father never let the people hear his voice
Of course, his reign is still in its infancy. But already Kim’s leadership style, political inclinations and attitude toward the world are starting to come into focus—and a big surprise is that Kim appears to be heading in what he describes as a “new, creative and enterprising” direction, nudging the national compass away from a fixation on his father’s “military-first politics” toward a Deng-like pragmatic emphasis on economic development.
An early sign that Kim would undertake governance differently than his father was the simple matter of giving a speech. While his father never let the people hear his voice, Kim Jong Un gave a televised oration in April, then another in June. Similarly, Kim has used the tradition of so-called on-site guidance visits, which put the Supreme Leader in direct contact with the North Korean people, to signal a new approach. His father’s style on guidance visits was withdrawn, almost painfully awkward—as captured in the farcical website Kim Jong Il Looking At Things.
The son is infinitely more at ease among his subjects. Instead of limiting himself to aloof observation, he interacts up-close with average people. Children surround him for photo-ops, soldiers throw their arms around him weeping in joy, and elderly principals affectionately interlock arms with him in traditional Korean style. He smiles jovially throughout it all, reciprocating and even initiating physical intimacy, projecting an aura of energy and enthusiasm.
Kim’s human touch caught a wave of global media attention after he showed up at a pop music concert sitting next to a stylish woman, later revealed to be his wife, Ri Sol Ju, as they watched Disney characters dance in front of a screen playing clips of the film Rocky IV. More striking were the black miniskirts worn by the band’s singers.
