Ten years ago, Kim Jong Un was announced as the “great successor” to his father, Kim Jong Il, who had died. It was the third generation from the family that had assumed the role of the ‘supreme leader’ of North Korea, a totalitarian state that had even by then outdone Orwell’s dystopian predictions. As the young leader enters the second decade of his rule, the plight of North Koreans seems worse than ever before.

For a 27-year-old inexperienced leader, Kim brought surprising ruthlessness to the job. Potential rivals like his uncle and half-brother were killed. His ‘armed forces minister’ was executed with an anti-aircraft gun for indiscretions including sleeping during a meeting chaired by Kim.

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https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2021/12/16/kim-jong-un-north-korea-10-years-hancocks-intl-pkg-vpx.cnn

The decade’s rule is marked by his rising nuclear ambitions, as North Korea carried out a series of nuclear and missile tests with the US, South Korea and Japan within range. Alongside, there were attempts at diplomacy – historic summit with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in followed by one with Donald Trump in 2018 – that did not bear fruits.

Funds spared for the Armageddon meant less money for welfare programs. For North Korean people, an authoritarian rule was not news but their economic distress seems to have worsened. In 2018, Kim acknowledged as much, when he announced a shift from nuclear armament to “concentrating all efforts” on modernizing and expanding the economy.

That was before Covid-19, which forced North Korea to close its borders and thus cutting off supplies from China, a prime supporter of the regime. Sanctions from outside and paranoid controls from inside had made it an isolated nation, and the pandemic made it even more isolated. The borders remain seals off as of today, while reports indicate a food crisis and terrible poverty.

In January 2021, Kim made a rare frank admission that his plans for the economy had failed. In April, he admitted that his country was facing its “worst-ever situation” due to the pandemic and natural disasters, though this did not stop him from threatening to increase his nuclear arsenal and develop more sophisticated weapons to teach the US a lesson.

Also read:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/kim-jong-un-north-korea-anniversary/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59680957

https://apnews.com/article/space-launches-diplomacy-donald-trump-seoul-south-korea-7c8486c74784813d3f050f5ebc5ad5d8

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/from-tempestuous-child-to-little-rocket-man-10-years-of-kim-jong-un