Edward Howell

Ten years ago today, at noon on 19 December 2011, the veteran newsreader and ‘Pink Lady’ Ri Chun-hee, donned an unusual black hanbok. Struggling to hold back her tears, Ri announced that North Korea’s Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il – a recluse workaholic who had led the country for 17 years – had died. On the same day, his twenty-something second son, Kim Jong-un, was duly anointed as the ‘great successor to the revolutionary cause’. Today’s anniversary does not reflect well on Kim’s legacy as leader of North Korea. He now rules a state crippled by economic problems, beset by factionalism in the ruling party, and which has sour relations with both the US and South Korea. After ten years in power, how did it all go so wrong for Jong-un?

For years, the West has tried to cajole the North Korean regime using sanctions, much to the frustration of Kim Jong-un. But now in the era of Covid, Pyongyang has been forced to inflict greater economic harm on itself, entrenching its international isolation and the suffering of its people. The hermit kingdom was one of the first countries to close itself off. The border with South Korea is already one of the most fortified in the world, while the northern Chinese perimeter, a vital point of trade, was sealed in January 2020 before many in the West had even heard of Covid.

On a humid summer’s day in Singapore three years ago today, Donald Trump became the first incumbent US president to meet with his North Korean counterpart. For all of the summit’s theatre, Kim Jong-un’s pledge to ‘work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula’ seems unlikely to be realised. Three years on, and the country shows little intention of either abandoning its nuclear ambitions or reforming Pyongyang. Instead, the regime has tightened its control over society, not least ideologically, after the failure of the Supreme Leader’s five-year economic plan. In 2018, the leadership assured North Koreans that the country had achieved its primary geopolitical aim of becoming a ‘fully-fledged nuclear state’.

Kim Jong-un marked the new year by treating North Koreans to several days of lengthy speeches followed by a display of North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities. Behind this show of power lies a truth that Jong-un and his country faces a series of unprecedented challenges this year. Sanctions continue to bite and, combined with the coronavirus pandemic, the North Korean economy remains paralysed. Yet this doesn't mean the task for Joe Biden in dealing with a problem like North Korea will be easy: in fact, with domestic problems exacerbating, it will make Biden’s task even harder. In 2018, the North Korean leader set out a ‘new strategic line’.

Donald Trump has made plenty of enemies in his time as president, but as the US president himself has claimed, he also gained an unlikely friend: Kim Jong-un. North Korea will be watching the result of next week's US election closely. But would Pyongyang prefer four more years of an impulsive Trump, or a new Biden administration in its place? Both leaders have not been immune from denigrations from the top of the North Korean regime. Trump may have been decried as a 'dotard', but his Democratic challenger has been degraded as a 'low-IQ snob' and an 'imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being'; a 'rabid dog' who 'must be beaten to death with a stick.

The halcyon days of 2018 seem very distant. Two years ago, North Korea sent a delegation to the Pyeongchang winter Olympics; three summits took place between the leaders of the two Koreas; president Trump and Kim Jong-un wined, dined, and produced what John Bolton terms – in his latest book – a 'substance-free communiqué' in Singapore. Now the era of newfound warm relations between Pyongyang and Washington seems to be over.  The 'permanent and stable peace regime on the Korean peninsula', to which the two Koreas committed in April 2018, is anything but fulfilled. And if recent events show, relations are in danger of deteriorating rapidly.

South Korea is one of the world’s success stories for tackling coronavirus and president Moon Jae-in's approval ratings have soared to a high of 71 per cent as a result. Yet North Korea has still claimed victory over its South Korean rival when it comes to dealing with this disease. According to the highly secretive regime-state, there is not a single Covid-19 case within its territory. But while Pyongyang is reluctant to come clean about the truth of how widespread coronavirus is, the country's state media hints at what is really unfolding. There was much hullaballoo when Kim Jong-un ‘disappeared’ in mid-April.