{"id":10556,"date":"2011-09-30T21:10:32","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T21:10:32","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-09-30T21:10:32","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T21:10:32","slug":"North-Korea-s-Dear-Young-General-Has-Made-His-Mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=10556","title":{"rendered":"North Korea\u2019s \u2018Dear Young General\u2019 Has Made His Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a telling sign of who is the rising star in North Korea: state-run television showing octogenarian party secretaries bowing to a man their grandchildren\u2019s age before accepting the smiling man\u2019s handshake or kowtowing to his instructions. Kim Jong-un, attended a military parade with his father. A year after Kim Jong-un made his public debut as North Korea\u2019s leader-in-waiting, scenes like that \u2014 the old party elite groveling \u2014 have become a staple of North Korea\u2019s propagandist media, a crucial tool for the country\u2019s leader, Kim Jong-il, to elevate his son as his successor.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\u201cThe obvious message of all this to North Koreans is that Kim Jong-un is now dictating to the top elite,\u201d said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea specialist at the Sejong Institute in South Korea. \u201cIt reflects the regime\u2019s confidence about his status as successor and about another hereditary succession.\u201d When Kim Jong-un, thought to be in his late 20s, emerged from obscurity a year ago this past week as a four-star general and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers\u2019 Party, the first thing the outside world noticed was the obesity he appeared to have inherited from his father and his grandfather, the late Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea. (Some South Korean news media outlets speculated that he might have undergone plastic surgery to more closely resemble his grandfather, a godlike figure among North Koreans.) <\/p>\n

A year on, it appears increasingly clear that the leadership is helping Kim Jong-un inherit his own personality cult. On state television, he is packaged to look like his grandfather: Mao suit, swept-back hair and the gravitas North Koreans associate with the Great Leader, who died in 1994. Less clear is whether the ruthless cunning that has intimidated generals and party elders is his or his father\u2019s. A major factor in the political dynamics surrounding the succession is whether Kim Jong-il can live long enough to provide his son with whatever assistance he may need to settle into power, analysts say. At national events, officials now habitually propose a toast to the health not only of Kim Jong-il but also of \u201cthe young general,\u201d said Peter Hughes, who left Pyongyang, the North\u2019s capital, in September after three years as Britain\u2019s ambassador. Last November, Dr. An Jong-hyok, the physician for the North Korean national soccer team, chastised a South Korean reporter for referring to Kim Jong-un without the honorific Dear Young General.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a telling sign of who is the rising star in North Korea: state-run television showing octogenarian party secretaries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"It is a telling sign of who is the rising star in North Korea: state-run television showing octogenarian party secretaries","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":127,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}