Nobody can access the Internet in the country but they can when they leave. Kim was so crazy about basketball that he sometimes slept with one next to his bed, his aunt once said. Our analysis and policy responses must also change and evolve and be prepared for all potential scenarios. In November 2017, North Korea tested intercontinental ballistic missiles with a potential reach of 8,000 milesputting the entire United States inrange. It is clear that he sees the program as vital to the security of his regime and his legitimacy as the leader of North Korea. Kim has adopted the mantle of the mythical, godlike leadership role that grandfather and country founder Kim Il-sung and his father Kim Jong-il held and continue to hold in their death. He grew to be 5 foot 7, so maybe it worked a bit. He is a nice guy who could never be a villain. Indeed, he seems to be playing an unspecified supporting role in his younger brothersregime. Jason Lee/Reuters. They relaxed at a luxury hotel in Interlaken, the swanky resort town outside Bern that is the gateway to the Jungfrau mountains and home to a famous amusement park. In the next generation Kim Jong-il had to navigate through world-changing events that included the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end of large-scale aid from Moscow, a changing relationship with the ever-suspicious Chinese who seemed to be prioritizing links with Seoul, and tense negotiations with the United States on North Koreas burgeoning nuclear program. Immediately after Kim Jong-ils death was announced, the North Korean state media made it clear that Jong-un was the successor: At the forefront of our revolution, there is our comrade Kim Jong-un standing as the great successor . As Kim assumed his status as the newly anointed leader of North Korea, its likely that this imagery was seared in his brain. North Korean hackers destroyed the data of Sony Pictures Entertainment, the company responsible for producing the film, and dumped confidential information, including salary lists, nearly 50,000 Social Security numbers, and five unreleased films onto public file-sharingsites. Why? That he might embark on reforms that, while not turning his familys Stalinist state into a liberal democracy, might make it a little less repressive. Still, the death wasjarring. Their link to the regime, the relationship that had vaulted them into this privileged position, was becoming weaker by the day. During the 1990s famine, in which as many as 23 million North Koreans died as a result of starvation and hunger-related illnesses, Kim was in Switzerland. Theres an old tale that Korean mothers, North and South, like to tell their children: If you play basketball, youll grow taller. This was Kim Jong Uns home while he was in Switzerland. The pair soon became close, bonding because of their seat placement but also because neither was particularly academic. Einstein, riding home from work on a tram one evening in 1905, solved the mystery of space-time that had been bothering him for years. Their teachers said they had no idea what happened to him, either. One unit was even called Happiness, Suffering, Life and Death. Students learned about Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi. Kim Jong-un has a well-known love of basketball. Hes a master at running the country but hes also trapped by the country and the mythology, Jung H. Pak, a former CIA analyst and author of the new book, Becoming Jong Un, told The Post. 1,502 were here. Kitante Primary School is a government Aided school founded in 1968 and it is along along Kira Road in. Anna Fifield is Beijing bureau chief at the Washington Post. The other kids in the school could only dream of having such shoes, said Nikola Kovacevic, another former classmate who often played basketball with Kim after school and estimates a pair cost more than $200 in Switzerland at the time. We were always in the second tier The teachers would see him struggling ashamedly and then move on. Under Kim Jong-un, the collapse of North Korea seemed more likely thanever. He had been to Paris to see an NBA exhibition game and had photos of himself standing with Toni Kukoc of the Chicago Bulls and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. He looked robust and healthy which is how they think a leader should look., Harold Cunningham/Getty Images; YONHAP/AFP/Getty Images. That, of course, is a bigif. North Korea was poor and backward, isolated, unable to feed its people, while clinging to its nuclear and missile programs for legitimacy and prestige. Even as tension with the United States went into overdrive after a sixth nuclear test and the launch of numerous ballistic missiles during the summer and fall of 2017, state media showed Kim and his wife touring a North Korean cosmetics factory. An estimated 200,000 North Koreans are held in some 30 prison camps across thecountry. STR/AFP/Getty Images. Or in his naivet he may simply want his people to enjoy the things to which he has had privileged access. Such confidence may be bolstered by the fact that Kim has yet to face a real crisis of the kind his father and grandfather had to confront and manage. What his four years in Europe reveal about the man who would become North Koreas leader. Kim studied abroad and spent family vacations skiing in the French Alps, going to EuroDisney in Paris, and swimming on the French Riviera, but this international experience didnt translate into political enlightenment or empathy for his countrymen at home when he took over after his fathers death. In Switzerland, Kim Jong Un could live a relatively normal existence. When he returned to Bern after spending the summer of 1998 in North Korea, Kim Jong Un did not go back to the private international school. In addition to the beauty industry, the vision of economic development that Kim has been promoting includes ski resorts, a riding club, skate parks, amusement parks, a new airport, and a dolphinarium, perhaps because he considers these as markers of a modern state. The former classmate didnt believe it until his old friend surfaced as the Great Leader, the third in a succession of a weird, personality cult-driven autocrats, in 2011. Kim Jong Chol was officially Pak Chol, and Kim Jong Un was Pak Un. One of his key points was that we tend to perceive what we expect to perceive, and that patterns of expectations tell analysts, subconsciously, what to look for, what is important, and how to interpret what is seen. The analysts established mindset predisposes her to think in certain ways and affects the way she incorporates newinformation. That nuclear test, and his grandfathers and fathers commitment to nuclear weapons, would also, however, narrow his choices once he took power, boxing him into the conviction that the fate of the nation and its 25 million people rested on his carrying forward this legacy. For Kim, skiing in the Swiss Alps and swimming in the French Riviera must have seemed part of his birthright. The pace of weapons testing is speeding up. Kim Jongun has overseen four nuclear tests and debuted ballistic missiles of various ranges, launched from multiple locations. He found himself in a chocolate-box picturesque city that that felt more like a quaint town than an international capital. While Kim has been developing and demonstrating advanced nuclear weapons capabilities, he has also focused on diversifying the Norths toolkit of provocations to include cyberattacks, the use of chemical and biological weapons, and the modernization of North Koreas military, which is among the worlds largest armed forces with over 1 million warriors. There are but three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves. Or in other words, the first generation makes the money, the second generation maintains it, and the third squanders it. And if so, how would he govern and conduct foreign affairs? Even the girl whom he had kicked and spat at conceded that he thawed over time as he became more sociable. He and his country do not exist in an ahistorical space that is unchanging and static. There was a spare seat next to Joao, so the new boy, who simply went by the name of Un, sat in it. Perhaps even more importantly, he may be deploying these signs of affluence to craft an internal narrative about North Koreas material well-being at a time when his people are being exposed to more and more information about South Koreas wealth. And his rule through terror and repressionagainst the backdrop of that pastel wonderland of waterparksmeans that the terrorized and repressed will continue to feed Kims illusions and expectations, his grandiose visions of himself and North Koreasdestiny. He is the son of Kim Jong-il and companion Ko Yong-hui, who died in 2004.He was educated at the International School of Berne with younger brother Kim Jong Un. By portraying Kim Jong-un as a hands-on leader who personally ordered the rocket launch from a satellite command center, the state media framed their new leader as bold and action-oriented even in the face of widespread international censure. Kim Jong Chul, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's elusive older brother, is a talented musician and major Eric Clapton fan who has the respect of his powerful younger brother but he is. At the same time, international pressure on North Korea has never been greater. In 2012, when Kim gave his first public speech, he ended with the line, Lets go on for our final victory. At the time, despite the fact that it was delivered against the backdrop of a military parade featuring the biggest display of Korean weapons ever to have been seen by the world, it sounded to me like the bluster of a new, young leader. But Kim Jong-il reportedly rejected Jong-nam as being unfit to lead North Korea. He kicked us in the shins and even spat at us, said one former classmate. Under this identity, Kim Jong Un settled in Liebefeld, where the architecture is more 70s concrete block than Alpine village. He wanted to let them know in no uncertain terms who was the boss.. Hajarah Nalwadda/AP Photo "Inevitably, we have to open up schools . But I believe it would be a mistake to extrapolate Kims future intentions from his past pronouncements and actions because we do not and will never have enough information about North Koreas intentions and capabilities that will make us feel certain about our understanding of Kim. Jung H. Pak is a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies at the Brookings Institutions Center for East Asia Policy Studies. But he has a high tolerance for other peoples pain. He could be aggressive and often indulged in trash talk. They enjoyed living in Europe and having money. Still, he remained introverted. When he was announced as his fathers heir in 2010, some analysts hoped that, having spent four years in Switzerland during his formative teenage years, Kim Jong Un would be a more open-minded leader of North Korea. If we unpack this comparison, we can envision how deeply Kim Jong-un might have been affected by the death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. According to Fujimoto, Kim carried a Colt .45 pistol when he was 11 years old and dressed in miniature armyuniforms. Animated by the optimism of one whose privilege made him believe anything was possible, he has prioritized both these issues and personally taken ownership of themall part of creating and nurturing hisbrand. His world at age 5 has turned out to be his world at age 30 Everyone does exist to servehim.. There had been signs before 2011 that Kim was grooming his son for the succession: he began to accompany his father on publicized inspections of military units, his birth home was designated a historical site, and he began to assume leadership titles and roles in the military, party, and security apparatus, including as a four-star general in2010. While North Koreans wept, fainted, and convulsed with grief, feigned or not, Kim Jong-un, the twenty-something-year-old son of Kim Jong-il, reportedly closed the countrys borders and declared a state of emergency. The regimes propaganda machine constructed and promoted the mythology, extolling his wisdom, his martial prowess, and his near supernatural capabilities, an example of which was his supposed ability to drive at agethree. Covering politics in a post-truth America by Susan B.Glasser. Despite his apparent lack of seriousness, Jong-un seems to have known from early on that, as his fathers chosen successor, he was destined to lead. Kim Jong Uns lessons included human rights, womens rights, and the development of democracy. Kims years in Switzerland, during which he was enrolled in both a tony private school and a small German-speaking public school, would have taught him that if he were to live in the outside world, he would have been entirely unremarkable. Kim Jong Un (circled) in an undated class photo at . It could also be on track to have up to 100 nuclear weapons and a variety of missileslong-range, road-mobile, and submarine-launchedthat could be operational as early as 2020. Once Kim did become the leader, and as such the personification of North Koreas national interest, he was endowed with all the tools of political repression that had consolidated his fathers and grandfathers supremacy. Kim Jong Un, 38, turned out to be a tyrannical dictator like his father and grandfather and hes still mysterious. Kim Jong Un was obsessed with basketball. He had a hoop outside the apartment and would play out there often, sometimes making more noise than the neighbors would have preferred. The young Kim and his classmates at the military universitythe future military eliteno doubt celebrated that nuclear milestone, which probably also fortified their optimism about their countrys nuclear future and reinforced their belief in their role as the defenders of thatfuture. They were granted asylum in the United States and settled down in Middle America, started a dry-cleaning store like so many other Korean immigrants and watched their children flourish in their new environment. In Switzerland, Kim Jong Un could live a relatively normal existence. For all we know he may have been posturing then, but given recent developments and Kims likely increased confidence about his ability to call the shots, the U.S. and its partners and allies, including China, must be clear-eyed about the potential for Kim to shift his stated defensive position to a more aspirationalone. Thanks for contacting us. In private conversation, they called Kim Jong Chol the tall, skinny one and Kim Jong Un the short, fat one. But the new Swiss attorney general, Carla Del Ponte (who would later become chief prosecutor in the international criminal tribunals of Yugoslavia and Rwanda), had forbidden the Swiss authorities to monitor the children. Predictions about Kims imminent fall, overthrow, or demise were rife among North Korea and Asia watchers. So after nightfall on Sunday, May 17, Kim Jong Uns aunt and uncle packed their three children into a taxi and went to the U.S. Embassy. Classmates recounted how the North Korean was introverted but was relatively fluent in English, but it turned out they were remembering the wrong North Korean, Pak Chol instead of Pak Un.. To find out more about what the young North Korean learned in school, I took the bus to Koniz one day and visited the municipality office. Pak is one of the most common Korean surnames after Kim. The North Korean princeling emerged from his cloistered childhood into this new, open world. Google. Instead, Kims use of repression and his conferring of financial benefits and special privileges to loyalists has probably encouraged sycophants and groupthink within his inner circle, fueling his preference for violence andaggression. It was a very normal childhood with birthday parties and gifts and Swiss kids coming over to play., They spoke Korean at home and ate Korean food, and the boys friends didnt know that Imoas Jong Chol and Jong Un called herwas Korean for Aunt, not for Mom.. This is required reading for CIA analysts. The second son, Jong-chul, was deemed too effeminate; one of Jong-chuls friends recalled that [Jongchul] is not the type of guy who would do something to harm others. In response to the death, South Korea convened a National Security Council meeting as the country put its military and civil defense on high alert, Japan set up a crisis management team, and the White House issued a statement saying that it was in close touch with our allies in South Korea and Japan. Back in Langley, I remember being watchful for any indications of instability, as I began to develop my thinking on what was happening and where North Korea might be headed under the newly named leader. Children who lived through the 90s famine are now soldiers in the Workers Party. https://bit.ly/3HOdolz #stadailynewsupdates #Crime If I look back I see a friendly, gentle Asian boy, Riesen told NBC News in 2018. Between 2011 and 2016, Kim Jongun reportedly ordered scores of executionssometimes for trivial reasons such as halfhearted clapping and sleeping in ameeting. It was public, gruesome and humiliating. And it is his ability to recalibrate, change course, and shift tactics that requires us to heed Heuers warnings about the weaknesses and biases in our thinking process and continually challenge our assumptions and perceptions about patterns of expectations in North Korea analysis. North Korea is what we at the CIA called the hardest of the hard targets. A former CIA analyst once said that trying to understand North Korea is like working on a jigsaw puzzle when you have a mere handful of pieces and your opponent is purposely throwing pieces from other puzzles into the box. The North Korean regimes opaqueness, self-imposed isolation, robust counterintelligence practices, and culture of fear and paranoia provided at best fragmentaryinformation. There was a strong emphasis on cultural diversity; religious, ethnic, and social groups; the rights of human beings; and standing in solidarity with the disadvantaged. Prior to her work in national security, Pak taught U.S. history at Hunter College in New York City and studied in South Korea as a FulbrightScholar. Behind the main street in an industrial alley, as the sign puts it, next door to a large wine trading company that looks like a monastery, is No. In famously discreet Switzerland, they were allowed to just be children even if they were the children of one of the worlds most notorious tyrants. The Kitante Hill School website provides visitors with a comprehensive view of our School Programs, Contact Information, Student Activities, Departments, Staff Members, Alumni, Current Students, Academics, Stories, Top Donors, School Events, Teaching Curriculum, Management board, Image and Photo Galleries, Tuition Fee Structure, Admission Requirements . Editorial: FredDews, WilliamFinan BethRashbaum, and StrobeTalbott, Graphics and design: JessicaPavone and CameronZotter, Promotion: EmilyRabadi, BrennanHoban, and AshleySchelling. He got along with his classmates, though he struggled with the Swiss-German dialect spoken in Bern and could sometimes be explosively competitive on the basketball court, said another former classmate, Marco Imhof.
