Tag: Kim Jong-un

Kim Jong-un is having a good month, besides a successful ballistic missile launch over Japan his wife has given birth to another baby:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju had their third child earlier this year, according to the National Intelligence Service.

The spy agency submitted a written report to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee Monday that Ri seems to have given birth to their third child in February.

According to the agency, Kim and Ri, who married in 2009, had their first child in 2010 and second one in 2013. There was speculation about Ri’s third pregnancy as she had not appeared at public events for about nine months last year.

The only information known about their children is that the second one is a girl named Ju-ae, which U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman disclosed after visiting Pyongyang in 2013 at the invitation of Kim, an avid basketball fan.

No other information about the other two children, including their sexes, has been revealed.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It has long been suspected that the Chinese government kept close ties with Kim Jong-nam as sort of a Plan B if needed in North Korea.  According to the below article Kim Jong-nam made sure a Chinese Plan B could never happen after he got word of a possible coup:

When Kim Jong Nam was killed with a deadly nerve agent in an airport in Malaysia in February, it may have thwarted an attempt backed by the Chinese government to overthrow his half-brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Citing three sources, Nikkei Asian Review reported on Monday that top government officials in China and North Korea in 2012 seriously considered a plot to remove Kim Jong Un.

Nikkei reports that Hu Jintao, China’s president at the time, met with Kim Jong Un’s uncle, who floated the idea of replacing him with his half-brother, a politically unmotivated gambler.

But because of a recent scandal involving the death of the son of one of Hu’s advisers, the Chinese leader did not immediately act.

According to the report, a top adviser to Jiang Zemin, Hu’s predecessor and rival, caught wind of the plot and informed Kim Jong Un, who in 2013 had his uncle executed and purged several officials with ties to China.  [American Military News]

You can read more at the link.

I guess if you discount political executions, mass malnourishment of its people, gulags, military attacks on neighbors, state sponsored criminal activity, and being an international pariah than I guess yes you could make a comparison between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un:

Not to be outdone, North Korea’s military revealed a detailed plan to strike the U.S. island territory of Guam, which hosts key Air Force and Navy bases. After further brinkmanship between the two leaders, North Korea’s state-run media showed footage of Kim himself reviewing the plans. But the leader said he would not attack unless the U.S. struck first, effectively ending an imminent missile scare.

While a number of Western media outlets portrayed this as a retreat on Kim’s part, North Korea expert Michael Madden says it actually boosted Kim’s credibility on the international stage.

“This allowed Kim Jong Un to portray himself as the more experienced leader,” Madden, a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute, tells Newsweek, adding that Kim also appeared more likely to defer to his advisers than Trump.

“Who would have thought that when we said ‘let cooler heads prevail,’ it would be the 33-year-old leader of the DPRK?” said Madden, referring to North Korea’s official title: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Trump hailed Kim’s “very wise and well-reasoned decision” in a tweet Wednesday, but Town and Madden agree that Kim has come out stronger from the latest crisis. While Trump fired off a number of statements that were widely challenged at home—including the claim that he had improved the country’s nuclear arsenal and that U.S. missiles were “locked and loaded”—Kim remained largely silent and delegated his words to lower-level outlets of his government’s propaganda, allowing ample room for de-escalation. Even his strategic missile force’s Guam attack plan included language that offered North Korea a way out from actually going through with it.

“Kim has been very careful with his words as not to back himself into a corner by shooting from the hip, like the Trump administration,” Town says.  [Newsweek]

You can read the rest at the link.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un tours the Chemical Material Institute of the Academy of Defense Science, according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Aug. 23, 2017, without saying when the visit was made. The institute develops and produces parts for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). (Yonhap)

Here is another example of the equivalency many journalists try to make between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump:

I think if I really think about it, I’m a little concerned. But it’s also in the sense that I’m concerned about how easily accessible nuclear weapons are increasingly in this world. And it’s not just North Korea. It’s the United States, it’s Russia, it’s all these different countries.

There’s another layer of hypocrisy in the way we report about North Korea. Like, the United States owns nuclear weapons, but why is North Korea in the axis of evil that doesn’t get to because it’s supposed to be the less rational one? I’m just generally afraid of nuclear weapons in general. I’m just as afraid of Trump owning nuclear weapons as Kim Jong Un owning one.  [VOX]

You can read more of the interview at the link, but does this South Korean journalist believe Japan should get nuclear weapons because everyone should have the right to pursue them?  That is the obvious logic being advocated for here.

Plus in my opinion anyone who thinks President Trump is just going to wake up one day and authorize a nuclear weapons strike should not be taken seriously.  The same can be said for anyone who thinks Kim Jong-un is just going to wake up one day and launch a nuclear weapons strike as well.

Long time Korea watchers are probably not surprised by the below statement from Kim Jong-un who has backed down from his supposed plan to fire four missiles towards Guam:

The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday that the army had finalized the blueprint and presented it to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he inspected his Strategic Force command the day before.

“He examined the plan for a long time and discussed it with the commanding officers in real earnest,” KCNA said, adding that Kim offered praise for the “close and careful plan.”

The leader reportedly said “he would watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees,” as the North calls the Americans, and warned that he may “make an important decision as it already declared” if the conduct persists.
KCNA quoted Kim as saying “that if the planned fire of power demonstration is carried out as the U.S. is going more reckless, it will be the most delightful historic moment when the Hwasong artillerymen will wring the windpipes of the Yankees and point daggers at their necks.”

Kim said the U.S. “should stop at once arrogant provocations against [North Korea] and unilateral demands and not provoke it any longer,” the agency said.
Analysts said Kim was trying to tamp down skyrocketing tensions that have generated the most serious crisis on the divided peninsula in years. But they also warned he left the door open to launch a missile if he feels provoked.
“By North Korean signaling it’s a clear de-escalation, and it’s also an ask for the de-escalation from the American side,” said John Delury, an Asia expert at Yonsei University in Seoul.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but the whole threat was clearly just rhetoric because the regime is not suicidal.  They know full well attacking Guam would lead to the end of the regime.  This backing down from attacking Guam doesn’t mean they will not launch a provocation.  With the upcoming UFG military exercise they will very likely do something.

As I have said before if there are any deadly provocations planned they will be launched against a ROK target not the US.  North Korea has killed and injured many ROK servicemembers and civilians over the decades to include in recent years with little to no retaliation.  They know killing Americans will lead to retaliation which is why provocations directed towards the US have been missile and nuclear tests.  I don’t see anything right now changing this calculus for the Kim regime.

It seems that further an American is away from the US mainland the better their perspective becomes on the recent rhetorical wars between President Trump and Kim Jong-un because I think Guam Governor Eddie Calvo is correct in his assessment:

Guam’s leader said Monday that “sometimes a bully can only be stopped with a punch in the nose”, in a spirited defence of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric against North Korea which has the island in its crosshairs.

While Trump’s critics accuse him of inflaming tensions with Pyongyang, Guam governor Eddie Calvo said he was grateful the US leader was taking a strong stance against North Korean threats to his Pacific homeland.

“Everyone who grew up in the schoolyard in elementary school, we understand a bully,” Calvo told AFP.

“(North Korean leader) Kim Jong-Un is a bully with some very strong weapons… a bully has to be countered very strongly.”

Calvo, a Republican, said Trump was being unfairly criticised over his handling of the North Korea crisis, which escalated when Pyongyang announced plans to launch missiles toward Guam in a “crucial warning”.

He said North Korea had threatened Guam — a US territory which hosts two large military bases and is home to more than 6,000 military personnel — at least three times since 2013.

Trump has responded by threatening “fire and fury”, warning last week that the US military was “locked and loaded” to respond to any aggression.

“President Trump is not your conventional elected leader, what he says and how he says it is a lot different from what was said by previous presidents,” Calvo said.

But he pointed out previous presidents had also used strong words to warn off Pyongyang, including Barack Obama who said last year that “we could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals”.

“One president (Obama) said it one way, cool and calmly with a period… the other said fire and fury with an exclamation point, but it still leads to the same message,” Calvo said.

He rejected suggestions that Trump and the North Korean dictator were as bad as each other when it came to the sabre-rattling playing out in the western Pacific.

“Well there’s only one guy that has vaporised into a red mist his uncle or a general because he fell asleep in a meeting with an anti-aircraft gun, that’s Kim Jong-Un,” he said.

“There’s only one guy that’s killed his brother with one of the most toxic nerve agents ever created, that’s Kim Jong-Un.”  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but the statement that Governor Calvo is referring to is when President Obama threatened that the US could destroy North Korea in response to a submarine launched ballistic missile test just last year.  The media did not freak out and it did not lead to a global crisis where everyone thought war was imminent.

I tend to think that Kim Jong-un is probably sleeping very well considering he is nearing his strategic goal of obtaining a nuclear weapon with a reliable delivery system.  Once this goal is achieved he pretty much guarantees himself the ability to prevent outside regime change.  Additionally the whole world is not against North Korea, they have enough partners internationally that they continue to bring in enough revenue and components to advance their nuclear and weapons programs:

McMaster told MSNBC in an interview, “I think he should not be [sleeping well] because he has the whole world against him… He’s isolated on this.”

He described North Korea’s missiles as a “grave threat” but declined to confirm that the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile the North tested recently can reach New York. “I’m not going to confirm it,” McMaster said. “But as I mentioned, really, whether it could reach San Francisco or Pittsburgh or Washington — how much does that matter, right? It’s a grave threat.”

He added it is intolerable for North Korea have nuclear weapons that could threaten the U.S., and all options including a military option should be on the table.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters the previous day that the U.S. is willing to hold talks with the regime and added, “We do not seek regime change.”

But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal the same day, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence ruled out direct talks. The U.S.’ strategy doesn’t involve “engaging North Korea directly,” he said.

The shambolic Trump administration has frequently made it difficult to discern any clear line in the fog of obfuscation and braggadocio that emerges from it.

McMaster, an Army lieutenant general, is seen by some in the U.S. mainstream media as the most rational in the national security team and is thought to stand his ground against President Donald Trump if necessary.  [Chosun Ilbo]

By the way the past week has had a lot of White House intrigue involving H.R. McMaster.  Factions in the White House are unhappy that McMaster has been cleaning house in the National Security Council.  He even fired a staffer named Ezra Cohen-Watnick that an article last month in the Atlantic proclaimed him as,  ‘The Man McMaster Couldn’t Fire.’

Now right wing elements want President Trump to fire McMaster because of his house cleaning.  However, President Trump has come out and supported McMaster today.

It seems like President Duterte has nothing good to say about every world leader to include Kim Jong-un:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s latest controversial remarks target the North Korean regime, and they come just a few days ahead of his hosting a meeting of foreign diplomats at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum.

In his typical colorful rhetoric, Duterte professed his hatred for war and described North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un as a “fool” and a “son of a bitch” who is “playing with dangerous toys.”

“This Kim Jong Un, a fool…. He is playing with dangerous toys, that fool,” Duterte said in a speech live-streamed on Facebook to tax officials on Wednesday. Then, he commented on Kim Jong Un’s appearance.  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link.

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up: 3 Kim Jong Uns running around Hwasong-14 as it gets separated from camouflage TEL. pic.twitter.com/bhjL9jTHTu

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) July 29, 2017