Korean leaders seek to control optics at their historic summit
SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Jong Un will be in uncharted territory when the third-generation autocrat crosses to the southern half of the Demilitarized Zone separating the rival Koreas on Friday, possibly on foot, and greets South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Cameras wielded by one of the most aggressive media contingents on the planet will fire live images of a man used to controlling every aspect of his public persona into the homes and onto the phones of millions of people around the world — though it’s not yet clear if it will be seen instantly in North Korea.
But as Kim navigates this minefield (figuratively; he’s not passing through that part of the DMZ) at the third-ever leadership summit between the rivals, he may actually have an ally of sorts in Moon.
Despite an announcement that some bits of the summit will be shown live, and the possibility of a joint news conference, Moon seems intent on keeping the North Korean leader at ease, and an aggressive local media at bay, while engineering a summit meant to move the Koreas from what seemed like the brink of war last year to the engagement the liberal Moon has always dreamed of. This mindset could make it hard for Moon — keen on creating a legacy-defining moment that will set up Kim’s summit with President Donald Trump in the coming weeks — to resist whatever media controls the North demands.
“The South Korean government is so anxious and invested to ensure the KimTrump summit happens, and isn’t a failure, that acceding to media choreography is a very small price to pay when Kim and Moon meet,” Vipin Narang, a Koreas specialist at MIT, said by email. “If Kim asks for it, I don’t see the South Koreans pushing back too hard.”
At home, thousands of people work to craft Kim’s image. Even when Kim traveled to China earlier this month, the selfcensoring Chinese media and the autocratic government in Beijing helped cloak the trip in secrecy; the North then later packaged a sanitized video presentation of the visit for state-controlled TV.
While Kim may not be able to control every aspect of what happens on the South Korean side of the DMZ, Seoul seems eager to make sure things go smoothly, even preparing a banquet that includes dishes from Switzerland, where Kim studied during his teens.
Seoul also planned three days of extensive, closeddoor dress rehearsals, one of them involving North Korean officials, leading up to the summit Friday. The information the world receives will likely be closely controlled: Except for a group of pool reporters at the summit, whose access may be extremely limited, journalists will be sequestered at a media center well away from heavily guarded Panmunjom, the border village where the summit will take place.