Thread by @BonicMichael

Portrait of Kim Jong Un as a Young Leader
[a lengthy thread]
“Furthermore, Fujimoto stated that "if power is to be handed over then Jong-un is the best for it. He has superb physical gifts, is a big drinker and never admits defeat." Also, according to
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-…

2/"Fujimoto, Jong-un smokes Yves Saint Laurent cigarettes, loves Johnnie Walker whisky and has a Mercedes-Benz 600 luxury sedan. When Jong-un was 18, Fujimoto described an episode where Jong-un once questioned his lavish lifestyle and asked, "we are here, playing basketball,

3/"riding horses, riding jet skis, having fun together. But what of the lives of the average people?”
So at 18 Kim Jong Un is "a big drinker, never admits defeat, smokes Yves Saint Laurent cigarettes, loves Johnnie Walker whisky", basketball, the Chicago Bull & Michael Jordan,

4/Jackie Chan action films, was "well-integrated and ambitious", grades not so hot, liked sports & played video games. If in the US if you were doing all that at 18 you might be a future rock musician or sports player or just a partying trust fund baby. A key to Kim Jong Un's

5/character has been captured by Kenji Fujimoto's recollection when "Jong-un once questioned his lavish lifestyle and asked, "we are here playing basketball, riding horses, riding jet skis, having fun together. But what of the lives of the average people?”
cnn.com/2012/09/19/wor…

6/At 18 Kim Jong Un is a guy who likes to have a good time, loves basketball and knows the mantle of his country's leadership is resting on his shoulders. He has to be incognito among his friends at school in Switzerland but he can't keep it secret. He
world.time.com/2012/01/18/nor…

7/tells a friend in effect, "I'm the son of the leader of North Korea." How would you act if you were the prince of a king or monarch or knew your were "inheriting the throne"? What would go through your mind? How would you handle it? Would you be up to the monumental task?

8/"But what of the lives of the average people?”
That is the moment when you realize you're going to be thrust onto a trajectory far beyond the ordinary, that you'll be entrusted with power, that your loyalty must be with your father & grandfather and that its up to you to find a

9/path to peace w/ the US b/c it's either going to be peace or war w/ the country that destroyed 85% of your country long ago. Luckily you're married to a really hot former cheerleader and pop singer who loves you and will be the mother of your children, whom you love

10/passionately without whom you'd be rudderless.
nytimes.com/2012/07/26/wor…
That Mystery Woman in North Korea? Turns Out She’s the First Lady
"“It would put some of his new policies into the context of a North Korean version of Camelot,” Mr. Park said. “A dynamic and charismatic

11/"first lady could be very helpful in creating this image of Camelot. It’s definitely an uphill battle, but this image could generate some initial momentum.”"

12/You have to keep your country together, show the generals whose in charge, improve the economy under the sanctions, increase agricultural yield and most importantly continue the path of developing nuclear deterrence b/c that is the only way you'll keep the USA on its heels b/c

13/the world has seen what has happened to Libya. You must reward loyalty and punish disloyalty b/c the insidious allure of the West's capitalism always rears its ugly head to interfere with the struggle of achieving the success of DPRK's socialism. You know the last thing you

14/want is war but your hands are tied. Your duty is to maintain strategic national defense that protects your people, your country & your sovereignty so you can't do what the US wants, which is to be like Libya and fully denuke. You can't beg for peace from the US. Obama was a

15/was a liar who didn't fulfill his word and refused to call you by phone, which you asked Dennis Rodman to ask him to do. The US put up a wall of non communication so you had to enact the April 1 2013 Nuclear Law declaring nuclear deterrence as DPRK's national defense.

16/But w/ Trump the miraculous would happen. He'd be the first POTUS with whom you'd make real progress by signing the Singapore Joint Statement and bringing DPRK-US relations to a historic rapprochement. As a family person you want there top be peace on the Korean Peninsula so

17/that your children and their generation will experience the peace you and your generation never did. You and your wife know that the future of DPRK is in the children's hands; it's their future you're working towards, the Promised Land of peace the armistice was signed in

18/to obtain, but which the US has scandalously deserted its duties in, instead continuing to remain "hostile" by demanding the surrender of your national defense. That'll never happen, so God help us all and the world if the US goes crazy and paranoid and wants to attack DPRK.

19/In the 19th century there was only one Korea. And with two Koreas today, Korean culture and history goes back 1000s of years. 20th century ideologies can be as incompatible as oil and vinegar, but as we know, a salad without dressing is tasteless. Beneath ideology is the human

20/being. I see in Kim Jong Un a regular guy who has been catapulted into the position he's in, which he didn't ask for, but which it is his duty to carry out. A nation's hopes rests on his shoulders, and he & Ri Sol Ju want peace, but the US won't give peace. And they cannot

21/surrender their nuclear deterrence. So they're biding their time waiting on the US. Who'll be POTUS in the next Admin? Will it be Trump? Is peace around the corner? Or escalation. They've told the US: "We'll respond power w/ power, good will w/ good will", but the US is

22/notoriously unpredictable and seemingly not intelligent enough to understand their communications. It is a complex situation but they have the right to defend themselves. Why are the US, ROK & the Western powers so against the Kim Dynasty?

23/The Kim Dynasty has been in place since 1948, the year the ROK and DPRK were formed as two sovereign Korean states in ideological opposition. Dynasties, from the Yamato (781 AD - present) to the Ottoman (1299 - 1922 AD) to the Davidic (1010 - 586 BCE) to extant dynasties

24/ruling sovereign monarchies (there “are 43 sovereign states with a monarch as head of state, of which 41 are ruled by dynasties. There are currently 26 sovereign dynasties”), are a part of human civilization. Unlike the election of a civilian as president in democracies, the

25/mantle of leadership, in days past & in the present, in a dynasty are passed down in a hereditary line.

The Korean War was a civil war among the Korean people and an ideological proxy war b/t the USSR & USA. That the fighting ended with the signing of an armistice in 1953 w/

25/the expectation of a peace treaty to settle differences and bring a formal end to the war remains to this day the most significant aspect about an unresolved war b/t South Korea and the DPRK. Two countries fought to gain control of the Korean Peninsula, but no one won, so it

26/stands to reason that both sides relinquish both aspirations and claims of sovereignty over the entire peninsula. Since the then superpowers USA & USSR divided the Korean Peninsula into two Koreas along the 48th parallel (like generals drawing a division line on a map) it

27/isn’t the fault of the Koreas that each naturally would like to lay claim to the entire peninsula. But since this wasn’t resolved by either side winning the war (and thereby taking the “prize” of ownership of the Korean Peninsula), for the two Koreas to make peace they must

28/cease acting as pawns in the game of superpowers and take control of their destinies, whether separately or “hand in hand” in joint collaborative efforts. Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae In have made progress in this direction, aka the Sunshine (or Moonshine) Policy by meeting and

29/signing the Panmunjom & Pyongyang Declarations and Moon delivering a speech in Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium 20 Sept 2018. Yet conservative ROK’s People Power Party has seemingly been perennially against the ROK and DPRK making formal peace, stuck it would seem in the Cold War

30/past which was the cauldron which set off the war. The requirement of today however is to put the past forever behind and follow through on the peace treaty all sides were expecting when the armistice was signed 68 years ago. That means both sides acknowledging the sovereignty

31/ of the other and agreeing to coexist peacefully w/ one another. This is where a variation of the proverbial Judgement of Solomon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement…
comes into play. Think of it as the superpowers USA & USSR having already divided the Korean Peninsula in half (the baby).

32/They are symbolic of the woman who, not being the actual mother, was content that Solomon cut the baby in two by the sword. For indeed, the Korean Peninsula has been cut in two by the sword of warfare. Both Korea’s, like brothers then (or sisters), then should be like the true

33/mother who beseeched Solomon to sheath the sword.
“Solomon revealed their true feelings and relationship to the child by suggesting the baby be cut in two, each woman to receive half. With this strategy, he was able to discern the non-mother as the woman who entirely approved

34/of this proposal, while the actual mother begged that the sword might be sheathed and the child committed to the care of her rival.”
How should ROK and the DPRK reconcile? Both sides butt heads when it comes to Korean reunification. Socialism is not in South Korean’s national

35/interest (says Moon), and Kim Il Sung’s concept of Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo relegates socialism to the north (as does DPRK’s constitution itself). Before any real talk of Korean reunification occurs, then, first things first: both Korea’s have to formally

36/acknowledge that since neither won the war, none can lay claim to the entire Korean Peninsula. In order, then, is for both Koreas to formally acknowledge the sovereignty of the other. For the ROK this means abolishing the National Security Law that’s been in effect since 1948,

37/whereas the DPRK should amend its constitution and make a formal statement to the effect that it is content to limit its socialism to DPRK and has no aspirations, plans or goals of ever invading South Korea and forcefully reunifying the Korean Peninsula under socialism by

38/force (which the conservative People Power Party firmly believes is it’s aspiration and intention). The two Koreans making these moves, which could be accomplished in another Moon-Kim summit, would be a huge step forward for all Korean people, a landmark resolution of both

39/leaders walking “hand-in-hand” forward to shape and create Korean people’s destiny together. It would not only draw them together economically but politically and even militarily as well. The US, one of the “divide-and-conquer” superpowers who brought division to the Korean

40/Peninsula, will likely balk at the two Koreas drawing closer together. Yet it needn’t, as this will be a tremendous opportunity for it to bring DPRK into negotiations over permanently limiting its nuclear and ICBM programs in exchange for the US formally accepting a nuclear

41/DPRK and normalizing relations w/ it in a deal where DPRK accepts USFK permanently remaining in the ROK under the Mutual Defense Treaty, the rules of nonproliferation and signs nonaggression pacts w/ the US, ROK & allies. Then, with the threat of nuclear aggression made moot,

42/ROK and DPRK could form a Korean Commonwealth a la the UK, or even a United Korea or United Koryo, a political, economic and military alliance b/t two Korean nations. This would become the anchor of stability in NE Asia. The US and a limited nuclear DPRK start friendly

43/normalized relations for the first time in history as the two Koreas in a United Koryo become an economic juggernaut that integrates its economic policies w/ China’s BRI, and thru Moon’s Nine Bridges plan integrates United Koryo’s interior (thru rails that the former USSR

44/would be envious of) and connects it to Russia & China. United Koryo should become the crossroads of NE Asia that countries around the world will flock to to invest in and do business with.

So here we are today. Biden Admin is seemingly kicking the can of US-DPRK relations do

45/the road to the next POTUS. Kim Jong Un is patiently biding his time, watching the US. Relations are in a "power with power, goodwill with goodwill" mode. If Trump runs there could be another historic summit. Until then keep a low profile and work on agriculture & the economy.

@threadreaderapp compile