Kim Jong-Un (born January 8, 1984?, North Korea) is a North Korean political official who succeeded his father, Kim Jong Il, as leader of North Korea (2011– ).
Childhood and rise to power
The youngest of Kim Jong Il’s three sons, Kim Jong-Un lived most of his life out of the public eye, and little was known about him. Reportedly educated in Gümligen, Switzerland, at the International School of Berne, he went on to study at Kim Il-Sung National War College in P’yŏngyang from 2002 to 2007. As a young adult, Kim Jong-Un began accompanying his father on military inspections. It was thought that he worked either for the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP; the country’s ruling party) or in the army’s General Political Bureau; both organizations were involved in surveillance of government officials.
Rumours began to circulate early in 2009 that he was being groomed as his father’s eventual successor. He was listed as a candidate for the Supreme People’s Assembly in 2009, and that April he was given a post on the powerful National Defense Commission (NDC); the chairmanship of the NDC, defined in the constitution as the country’s highest office, was held by Kim Jong Il. By mid-2009 Kim Jong-Un was being referred to within the country by the title “Brilliant Comrade,” and in June it was reported that he had been named head of the State Security Department, the government agency responsible for political control and counterintelligence. That year he also reportedly married Ri Sol-Ju. In September 2010 Kim Jong-Un was given the high rank of four-star general, although he was not known to have had any prior military experience. The timing of his appointment was considered significant, as it came shortly before the first general meeting of the KWP since the session in 1980 at which his father had been named Kim Il-Sung’s successor. Over the next year his own position as successor became clearer.
After the death of his father in December 2011, Kim Jong-Un was declared the country’s supreme leader, an unofficial title that nonetheless signaled his position as the head of both the government and North Korea’s military forces. In April 2012 his status was validated by the acquisition of several official titles: first secretary of the KWP, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and chairman of the NDC, which was then the country’s highest bureaucratic authority. Kim’s national strategy of byungjin (often translated as “parallel development”), which emphasized the development of the country’s economy along with its defense capabilities, was officially adopted during a 2013 meeting of the KWP central committee. In June 2016 the congress of the Supreme People’s Assembly revised the constitution to broaden and solidify Kim Jong-Un’s position. The revisions created a new organization, the State Affairs Commission, with Kim as its head. The new commission replaced the NDC as North Korea’s most powerful governing agency.
The early years of Kim’s reign were characterized by a ruthless consolidation of power and the sharp acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. In December 2013 Kim executed his uncle Jang Song-Thaek, saying that he had “removed the scum” from the KWP. Jang was a member of Kim Jong Il’s inner circle and had served as a virtual regent for the younger Kim after his father’s death. Jang’s execution also marked a break with Beijing, as Jang had long been an advocate of closer ties with China. Although Jang was the highest-profile official to be purged by Kim, defectors and South Korean intelligence services reported that people who had displeased the regime were being executed on a routine basis. In several cases, individuals who reportedly had been killed in a spectacularly grisly fashion resurfaced years later; such instances provided a clear illustration of just how difficult it was to obtain accurate information about events inside North Korea.
Under Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program had advanced in fits and starts. The country’s first underground nuclear detonation, in October 2006, came just months after a series of ballistic missile tests, but observers characterized these early forays as middling successes at best. After February 2013, which saw the first nuclear test of the Kim Jong-Un regime, the pace of both underground detonations and long-range missile tests quickened dramatically. By 2017 North Korea had conducted a total of six nuclear tests, including at least one of a device that North Korean officials claimed was small enough to mount on an intercontinental ballistic missile. With a significant part of the mainland United States now theoretically within range of a North Korean nuclear attack, a war of words erupted between Kim and U.S. Pres. Donald Trump.
