2 LEADERS
John Delury, an associate professor at Yonsei University here.
Kim’s father and predecessor Kim Jong-il had groomed his son to take his place at the top of Pyongyang’s political pyramid for years before his death in 2011.
For his part, Trump reached the White House via a career in property development and reality television, followed by an unprecedentedly populist election campaign that upended the US political establishment.
While Kim was a youthful ingenue when he came to power — and remains among the world’s youngest leaders — he has now held office for several years, while Trump, a grandfather in his 70s, is in his first political post.
“It’s a weird situation where he is much more experienced than Trump, who is twice as old as him,” says Delury.
Kim “probably thinks he’s going to be around after Trump is gone”, he points out.
“Because he’s the heir of what appears to be a pretty stable, dynastic state means he has a longer time horizon than most people.”
And with a universally loyal media in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the North is officially known, and no social media, Kim has no need to concern himself about tomorrow’s headlines, or respond to them on Twitter.
Both men “prize loyalty”, says Delury, and are willing to employ “a high level of flux in personnel to ensure that it’s their people who are running the system. That’s a commonality between Kim and Trump.”
They also both deploy relatives in government. Dynastic descent from the North’s founder Kim Ilsung is the basis of Kim’s personal legitimacy — Pyongyang’s propaganda promotes the similarities between them in looks, mannerisms and even handwriting — and members of the Kim family hold influential positions.
In Washington, Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is an assistant to the president, her husband Jared Kushner is a close adviser, and Trump’s son, Donald Jr, has been embroiled in the investigation into alleged Russian influence in last year’s election.
“Family politics are formalised in the North Korean system but it’s been introduced through the Trump family in a way that’s unnerving to some Americans”, says Delury.
“There’s another analogy there.”
Now, the two sides are locked in a cycle of threat and counterthreat, with Pyongyang revealing a plan to send a salvo of missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam.
North Korea has been issuing hyperbolic threats for decades, such as turning the city here into a “sea of fire” — one recent academic analysis of its language was titled “Turning it up to Eleven”.
Pyongyang sees itself as defiantly facing down the menace from Washington, and anything fitting into that narrative bolsters the regime’s claim to legitimacy.
At the same time, Trump has theatrical instincts.
“This is the WWF part of Trump, reality TV, where each day is like a mini-show, and you need a foil, you need an enemy, you need a sense of drama and a good guy and bad guy, all these classic elements of popular entertainment.” AFP