Front Burner - A portrait of the mysterious Kim Jong-un

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

“He’s such a puzzle...and we don’t have all the answers.” As the world continues to try and figure out the puzzle that is North Korea, guest host Chris Berube talks to Anna Fifield, the Washington Post reporter who’s put together the most complete portrait leader Kim Jong-un yet. Her new book is “The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un”.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I'm Trana Winter. And I'm Thomas LeBlanc. Welcome to Chosen Family. Every second week we talk about art, And I'm Thomas LeBlanc. to shake it up. Listen to Chosen Family wherever you get your podcasts. What sign are you, by the way? I'm an Aerie. Of course. I love it. I'm Chris Berube. I help produce this show, but today I'm filling in for Jamie Poisson.

We know a lot about our world leaders. There are whole books about what Donald Trump was like in the 80s. There's even a hacky biopic about India's Narendra Modi. But there's one world leader who we really don't know much about. And the information we have, it's kind of unreliable. Why would the young dictator of North Korea want to kill his own brother? Who became the first American to meet with the new leader of North Korea? The wild child of basketball, Dennis Rodman. Here's why they banned the sarcasm, because Kim Jong-un fears people only agree with him ironically. Today, Washington Post reporter

Anna Fifield is here. Anna has visited North Korea a dozen times, and she has a new book called The Great Successor, The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong-un. It's the most complete picture we have of Kim at a moment when he's becoming really important on the world stage. That's coming up on Frontburner. Anna Fifield, hello. Hello. So you've taken this on, looking into the life of Kim Jong-un and trying to understand him all the way from the beginning. So what was Kim Jong-un like as a kid? So what was Kim Jong-un like as a kid?

Yeah, well, he had a very abnormal antisocial childhood. He lived in this big compound, you know, all sealed off from the outside world. He did not go to school. He did not have any friends other than his older brother and his younger sister who lived there with him. And I mean, these families of the ruling family were so dysfunctional that he did not even know the other children that were born to his father, Kim Jong-il. So he had no relationship whatsoever with his older half-brother, Kim Jong-nam. While he was so isolated there, he actually lived this life of luxury and absolute decadence there in that he had imported food and all of the toys he could ever want.

So he even had a gun and a car modified so that he could drive. So he lived a very kind of abnormal life. So while Kim Jong-un as a child was watching James Bond movies and, you know, action movies that were imported, you know, people from the ordinary life in North Korea were completely cut off and had no access to any outside information. So they didn't know that they did not live in a socialist paradise, as the propaganda would constantly tell them. Well, not only did Kim Jong-un have access to the outside world and to Western culture, he actually moved to Switzerland to go to this elite private school. What was that impact on him? What was he learning when he was

living in Switzerland as a teen? Right. So all of the children were sent to Switzerland, famous for its discretion, so that they could have something like a normal life. When Kim Jong-un was there, he moved at the age of 12 to the Swiss capital of Bern. He went in, first of all, to a private English language school. And then after two years, he changed to a public German language school. But there he discovered, you know, he was expected to do his lessons and to do his homework and sit tests and do well. And he was suddenly not the little princeling he had grown up believing himself to be. I actually went to the school district where he had been and looked through the curriculum and

saw what he had studied at that time. And I saw, you know, he had this kind of very well-rounded Swiss education that was a big focus on tolerance. But also very interestingly, I discovered that he learned about the French Revolution, which all kids in Switzerland learn about, because Switzerland was affected by this. And it really stuck with me because, you know, I wondered, like, does he remember his lessons about the, you know, the unhappy peasants who rise up against their leader who is spending way too much money on himself? I think, did he learn the lesson of revolution and does he try to guard against that in his current position?

Reports indicate Kim Jong-un is going to great lengths to smuggle limousines and luxury goods into North Korea, even as he demands money to keep the bodies of his father and grandfather preserved. High-end watches, yachts, cognac, and other expensive liquor. Even ski lifts for the resort which only North Korean elites can use. It's interesting because there are all these children of autocrats who go to the West to get educated. So I'm thinking of Bashar al-Assad, Mohammed bin Salman, and certainly Kim Jong-un. And they come back and there's an expectation that they will be different from their parents, right? That they've learned from a Western education, from seeing the outside world.

And I think people believed that when Kim Jong-un came back, he'd be a reformer because he was educated in the West. So what did people expect Kim Jong-un to be like as a leader? And then what was he actually like when he took over? Right. Well, when he took over at the end of 2011, there was a lot of skepticism about him and a lot of doubt that he would be able to do it. A 28-year-old enigma, unknown and untested, and now at the helm of a nuclear power. And the administration was hoping to have a new era with North Korea, now that they have a new leader. They were offering food aid.

Some people did hope that he would turn out to be this reformer and that he would finally end this repressive system in North Korea. But it's turned out to be the exact opposite. So I think he probably returned from his time in Switzerland with more resolve to keep this totalitarian system intact rather than, you know, this expectation that he might open up a little bit. Kim is believed to have executed at least 340 people since 2011, sometimes in brutal and excessive fashion with an anti-aircraft cannon. The United Nations in a 2015 report warning the regime uses access to food as an important means to enforce political loyalty. There have been some changes made by Kim Jong-un as much as he's kept the totalitarian regime in

place. I mean, economically, he has been different from his father in small ways. Like what have been the changes to North Korea that he's brought in, in terms of economics? On the economic side, this is the single biggest change in North Korea in the seven plus decades of its existence. And that he has really tolerated, almost encouraged the explosion of private markets in North Korea, where people are using their own kind of entrepreneurial zeal and their own wits to make money for themselves. So now there are these marketplaces. The number of them has more than doubled under Kim Jong-un,

where people are, you know, maybe women are making rice cakes at home and selling them in the markets. Maybe they're cutting hair or mending bike tires. And this has allowed them to work their way to a better standard of living for many people. You know, it's still extremely difficult for most people, but maybe slightly less difficult than it was 10 years ago. Yeah, we have to think about this in perspective, because something you say in the book is there are North Koreans who are eating meat maybe twice a year. And now those people get meat twice a month, which by the standard of a place like Canada, you know,

that's not luxury. But for North Korea, it's definitely better than it was 10 years ago. Yeah, that's right. And so, I mean, when I say things have improved, I want to stress that, for most North Koreans, it is still a real struggle every day. And there's still an incredible amount of deprivation there. But things have improved from where they were before for the vast majority of people. So it's been a big change in terms of the people I've talked to over the years who have escaped from North Korea. Whereas 10 years ago, the vast majority was talking about how they were escaping to feed themselves. And now, as often as not, people I talk to have escaped. They're escaping

because they're disillusioned. One family I talked to, they had left North Korea because the schools that their kids went to were substandard. The teachers weren't showing up because the teachers were making money in the markets, not earning money through state jobs. So these people had left to give their children a better education, which is the same reason that many South Koreans try to send their children to America or Canada or Australia or New Zealand. So things are changing inside North Korea under Kim Jong-un's leadership. It's interesting, there are these small changes, like allowing these markets to thrive,

not cracking down as much on people watching, say, Western movies as North Korea used to. But there are small changes that still let the regime stay intact. It's still a regime that is run on fear for the most part and still run on violence. I mean, what is the North Korean regime like and what kind of freedoms do people have right now? Right. So that is one thing that has not changed one bit at all. In fact, it's gotten worse in some ways under Kim Jong-un. So while he has freed things up a little bit on the economic side, he has absolutely kept intact this very repressive, draconian system that his father and grandfather established and practiced so that, yes, North Korea is separated into three broad classes of people,

the loyal, the wavering, and the hostile. And so Kim Jong-un has practiced this system where people who are not sufficiently politically loyal to him can be relegated down the classes out into the countryside. And for political crimes, which can include like questioning Kim Jong-un's leadership or questioning why they're spending all this money on nuclear weapons when they can't feed themselves properly. For those kind of political crimes, people can be consigned to these basically gulags,

these hard labor prison camps in the mountains. A devastating UN report in which hundreds of former prisoners detailed abuses at North Korean prison camps. They presented drawings of skeletal, starving people eating snakes and rats, emaciated human remains left for rats to eat. The type of food wasn't important to us. What mattered to us was getting food. We ate anything that seemed edible. I even ate a few kernels of corn from cow dung. But the way that North Korea stays together, I think, is because this system of punishment does not just affect the so-called perpetrator, but three generations of their entire family.

So you may be willing to risk your life to question Kim Jong-un, but three generations of their entire family. So you may be willing to risk your life to question Kim Jong-un, but are you willing to risk the life of your parents and your spouse and your children too? I mean, that's the kind of stakes that we're talking about in North Korea. And when we're talking about state control, I mean, they really do control, I'd say, most aspects of people's lives. Like there's no Internet access unless you're part of the elite. Hairstyles can be strictly controlled in lots of places. There is actually a special unit that is going out to enforce bans on things like foreign media coming in.

At the center of it, like, why do you think he's been able to keep this incredibly strict regime in place i think it is a combination of two factors one is this fear and repression that he has kept up so he's shown a willingness to get rid of anybody who could be a rival to him or threaten his control. And that includes his uncle, who helped him take over and then was very publicly humiliated by being dragged out of this Communist Party meeting and then executed. And that news was shared with everybody. So it sent a very powerful message to the elite. Images emerged of Jang, who was being led away by uniformed soldiers. In trademark language, he was, said state TV, despicable human scum, worse than a dog, a man who perpetrated thrice cursed acts of treachery.

So he's used this system of fear to keep people in line, but he's also kind of used corruption and largesse to make sure that life is getting better for the 1% in particular under him. Military chiefs run construction projects and, you know, take a big cut on the side. So by allowing people to become richer, the 1% in particular to become richer, he has given them more reason than ever to keep the system intact. I feel like for most of our lifetimes, North Korea has not been an internationally significant player because, you know, it's a country of 25 million people. It's it was not engaging with the world. It was pretty isolated. And then Barack Obama on the way out of office said, OK, I think the biggest threat that we're facing might be North Korea. They said, what's the biggest problem? He said, by far, North Korea.

And then Donald Trump had to engage with him. So how did that engagement start for Donald Trump? Well, I mean, before Donald Trump got to engagement, he was talking seriously about military action against North Korea, about raining down fire and fury. And frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you. This is because, you know, there has been a long history of underestimating North Korea, I think, or underestimating Kim Jong-un.

When he did come in at the end of 2011, there were so many predictions that he would not be able to do it. And on the nuclear side, there was a lot of skepticism. You know, people would, like officials or experts, would laugh at the idea that Kim Jong-un would be able to develop a hydrogen bomb, as he said he wanted to. But he made a lot of effort and managed to make astonishingly fast and demonstrable progress on this nuclear program. The scientific field for national defense of the DPRK succeeded in the third underground

nuclear test. Another test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Kim Jong-un said we now have the clear capacity to directly and realistically attack American bastards. This focused the world's mind like never before because suddenly it was not just a theoretical threat anymore. Donald Trump responded with bluster and military threats first of all and then turned on a dime at the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018, as did Kim Jong-un, because it was really at the end of 2017 that Kim Jong-un said he had completed his rocket program, which was the sign now that he was ready to talk. North Korea claims it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, a device which can be loaded onto a long-range ballistic missile.

The whole of the U.S. mainland is within our firing range, and the nuclear button is on my desk. It's not a threat, he said, but a reality. And it feels like developing the nuclear weapons program, all this bluster between Trump and Kim, it all culminated last June, on June 12th. What happened on that day? That's right. That is the day that Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un both met in Singapore to begin this process of diplomatic engagement between these two countries that are avowed enemies. Here comes the President of the United States. And here are the two gentlemen. Let's watch them all. And I was in Singapore there watching them. And it was really astonishing to see the two of them, you know, acting so chummily towards each other. And both of them

clearly interested in this process now and wanting to make some diplomatic progress there. We had a historic meeting and decided to leave the past behind, and we are about to sign a historic document. The world will see a major change. I don't for a second think that Kim Jong-un is giving up his nuclear weapons ever. But I think he wanted to embark on this process because he needs relief from the international sanctions that have been opposed on him and his regime. If he is to achieve his goal of economic development in North Korea and maintaining this idea that he is the legitimate leader of North Korea because life is getting better under him. Yeah, it's interesting because we've had a year now after the Singapore summit to watch that relationship develop.

And, you know, there are these so-called love letters going back and forth between Trump and Kim. When I did it and I was really being tough, and so was he. And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love. Okay? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. But people don't have infinite patience. Like nothing has been properly accomplished yet. So what would actually have to happen for North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program or is there any incentive for North Korea to do that? Already we're seeing signs from the United States side that they know that denuclearization is a very, very high standard or

a lofty ambition to meet at the moment, and they need to settle for a smaller deal in the meantime. So I think we might see a situation where Kim Jong-un may be willing to relinquish some of his nuclear capacity or some hardware in return for sanctions relief. He's certainly not going to give up everything or he's not going to give up the capacity to make sure. But one important factor is that China and Russia, but particularly China, are really pushing for this sanctions relief because they want to encourage Kim Jong-un to continue down this path. They want him to see diplomacy as the answer and economic reform as the answer, not nuclear tests and military threats going back and forth at each other. So I think, yes, there's a lot of forces

combining together to do some kind of intermediate deal here to continue this process. Yeah. I wonder how does this end? Does it end with North Korea becoming a quote unquote normal state, like a state that trades with the rest of the world and give speeches at the United Nations and things like that? Is that what is going to happen in the next few years? No, North Korea cannot be a normal state, given the illegitimacy of this leadership and the isolation that they need to pursue in order to remain intact. But I think Kim Jong-un is trying to get there, to try to seem like he's a respectable statesman on the same level as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, that he is up there with the rest of them. But I think there is a limit to that.

opening where China allowed foreign investment and allowed trade and allowed people to go back and forth without giving up any political control. I think even that level of opening is beyond Kim Jong-un's reach because it's hard to see how he could continue to maintain this idea that he is the best person for the job when people's eyes are more and more open to the outside world. So you've spent the last two years of your life really trying to get in the mind of Kim Jong-un. How does it feel to not be doing that anymore? Well, I mean, it certainly feels great to be not getting up at four o'clock in the morning to write about Kim Jong Un every day. The reason I wrote this book is because he's such a puzzle, because I wanted to try to figure out how he had done this, what makes him tick, how he had learned to be the leader of North Korea. But there's still so much that's

happening. You know, every time he comes out into the world, meets with Donald Trump or whatever, or something new happens in North Korea, of course, I continue to remain extremely fascinated. And yeah, I can't imagine not watching this closely, you know, anytime soon. Anna Fifield, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me on. Okay, a lot has happened in the last few days in the relationship between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. A photo of Trump and Kim was hung in the White House. It is sitting right next to a photo of Trump and the Queen of England. But despite this gesture, tensions are growing. South Korea announced it will be going ahead next month with a joint military exercise with the U.S. at the

North Korean border. Kim Jong-un has said that exercise would violate a verbal agreement he made with Trump in Singapore. That's all for today. Matt Braga is in the chair tomorrow. I'm Chrisbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger.

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