but sycophantic praise from those around him. After all, did they not bow deeply to him at his childhood birthday parties? One of Jang’s crimes was clapping “halfheartedly” when Kim was elected vice chairman of the country’s Central Military Commission in 2010, suggesting that the future ruler’s wrath was driven by deep insecurity about the strength of the senior leadership’s support. The incident also shows that Kim has patience: He waited three years to conduct the purge until he had time to build a case against Jang. The most proximate reason for the downfall of Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol, who was reportedly executed in 2015, might have been that he fell asleep during one of Kim’s speeches as the new leader, but Hyon also might have offended Kim by questioning his early decisions to adopt a belligerent approach to external relations.
In fact, Kim’s scorn and disregard for the older generation extended outside of his country’s borders. He wasn’t just a young head of state in North Korea; he was also the youngest by decades among the constellation of leaders in the region. Lee Myung-bak, South Korea’s president until 2013, was born in 1941; his successor, Park Geun-hye, was born in 1952. Park, China’s president Xi Jinping (born 1953), and Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo (born 1954) were children of former leaders or senior officials of their respective countries. President Obama was the youngest in this group, in his early fifties when his presidency and Kim’s ascendance coincided. Kim has used vitriolic rhetoric against these regional and world leaders in the same way he used execution to deal with internal offenders. The regime spewed unashamedly racist language against the African-American president, calling him “a monkey in a tropical forest.” Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female president, was a “bitch” and a “cold-blooded animal,” who was like a “despicable prostitute” whose “fancy man [pimp]” was Obama, referencing the close coordination between Washington and Seoul and their alliance against North Korea’s provocative actions.
Kim’s regime would take a more circumspect tone in its criticism of Chinese leadership, undoubtedly because North Korea depends on Chinese political and economic aid. Ties between Pyongyang and Beijing had suffered since Kim came to power, with the numbers of high-level and working-level exchanges and visits plummeting as Kim kept China at arm’s length, probably because he had little appetite for heeding what were sure to be Chinese leaders’ admonitions about continuing to sow tension in the region. Indeed, in November 2012, when President Xi Jinping dispatched an envoy—the first visit by a Chinese official to Pyongyang since Kim took the reins—he reportedly sent along a letter that advised the new leader to refrain from launching a ballistic missile. Yet not even two weeks later, Kim successfully launched a rocket, in defiance of Xi’s warning. Kim would occasionally send an envoy to Beijing in a halfhearted effort to at least pay lip service to the relationship. But when Kim felt jilted or disrespected by Xi’s government, he would retaliate to show that he would not be cowed, that he was the master of his decisions.
For example, in what was touted at the time as a thaw in relations, Kim dispatched the Moranbong Band—an all-female group of musicians made up of women Kim reportedly handpicked—to Beijing for a weeklong tour. Kim then abruptly recalled them to Pyongyang, apparently because Beijing decided to send lower-level officials to the planned concert. Irked by the provocative declaration Kim had made in Pyongyang that North Korea had developed and deployed a hydrogen bomb, senior Chinese leaders apparently wanted to show their disapproval. Kim’s decision to bring the band back home, in response to the Chinese snub, reflects his strong will and lack of interest in mitigating the consequences of his actions. Did he think that issuing an inflammatory statement about thermonuclear weapons would go unnoticed by Beijing? The incident ultimately laid bare the clash of wills between the senior Xi and the young North Korean leader. For Kim’s part, he was not going to yield to Chinese preferences or let his personal girl band suffer the indignity of Chinese aspersions. Negotiating and compromise were not part of his vocabulary.
Kim was cold and aloof to political leaders and even business moguls like Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt, who went to Pyongyang in early 2013 with a delegation led by Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico and a frequent visitor to Pyongyang. But he met with Dennis Rodman, a flamboyant U.S. basketball