Kim Jong Un: The young leader taking center stage

SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea has been isolated and ostracized for decades, but leader Kim Jong Un will share centre spot on the world stage Tuesday at his Singapore summit with US President Donald Trump.

His father and grandfather restricted their overseas trips to the Communist bloc or non-aligned countries – with his father Kim Jong Il having a notorious fear of flying.

But Kim, who is still in his mid-30s, repeatedly showed an ability to stamp an outsized footprint on the global stage without ever leaving home, taking his country to unprecedented nuclear heights and sending tensions soaring.

Until this year, the most prominent American he had met was basketball star Dennis Rodman, with whom he struck up an unlikely friendship.

But in an abrupt turnaround, Singapore will host the first-ever meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting US president, the climax of a series of summits in less than three months. Kim arrived Sunday for the event.

Last year Kim called Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard’’ but he now appears to have embraced a new diplomatic approach, coming across as polite and even charming in two meetings each with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the South’s President Moon Jae-in.

Kim is the third member of his dynasty to rule the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the country is officially known, and inherited power in 2011 when he was still in his 20s.

He has noticeably modeled his image on that of his grandfather Kim Il Sung, appearing to mimic his hairstyle, dress, mannerisms and public speaking style.

Pyongyang is extremely sensitive and protective when it comes to the image of the ruling family, and Kim’s father and grandfather are ubiquitous, their portraits adorning every home and office in the country while their bodies lie in state at the capital’s Kumsusan Palace.

The North’s founder Kim Il Sung remains the country’s Eternal President despite having died in 1994, and the current leader’s key governmental title is instead the unwieldy Chairman of the State Affairs Commission.

Unlike his grandfather, whose youth was dominated by the anti-Japanese struggle, Kim has led a life of luxury.

He was born to his father’s third wife, Japan-born ethnic Korean dancer Ko Yong Hui, who is believed to have died of breast cancer in 2004.

Much of his early history is still surrounded in mystery – so much so that even his precise date of birth is unclear.

He is said to have known that he would become North Korea’s leader from his eighth birthday, when he received a general’s uniform and the country’s military top brass bowed to him.