[Joel Brinkley] Possibly, there is hope for a North Korean thaw

Don’t give up on Kim Jong-un, the cherubic naif who is North Korea’s new supreme leader.

For weeks now, North Korea’s establishment has been prostrating itself at his feet, while prosecuting a frenzied campaign to show his people that this young man with the chubby cheeks is a god-like leader, just like his father and grandfather before him. A few weeks ago, the state’s official media improbably credited him with presiding over North Korea’s nuclear-weapons tests, which began in 2006 ― when Kim was about 21 years old.

Don’t be fooled. All of this is for their benefit, not Kim’s.

All of those generals and government apparatchiks want to preserve the privileged lifestyle that allows them to dine on Big Macs flown in from China, smoke well-aged Cuban cigars and sip Hennessy cognac. U.N. and South Korean government figures show that these luxury-item imports and many others ― automobiles, iPads and air conditioners, all from China ― have doubled in the last year, in direct violation of U.N. sanctions.

An exceedingly tiny percentage of North Koreans live in this opulent cocoon, while millions of others subsist on grass and tree bark. But the lucky few are determined to preserve their gilded lives. And the best way to do that is to enshrine the next generation of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled North Korea since the 1940s.

But Kim reminds me of Norodom Sihanouk, the former boy-king of another poor Asian state, Cambodia. He was crowned in 1941, while France occupied his country. The French overseers chose Sihanouk, who was 19 years old, because they felt sure the naive teenager would be compliant. Certainly the North Korean oligarchy is hoping the same of Kim right now.

Like Kim, Sihanouk was educated abroad ― France in his case ― allowing him to see how the Western world lived. Kim spent two years, 1998-2000, at school in Switzerland.

Well, 12 years after Sihanouk’s coronation, he instigated an uprising that won Cambodia’s freedom from France after almost 100 years of occupation.

Already, even in his first few days in office, Kim has offered indications that he may not preside over business as usual. North Korea watchers had predicted an unprovoked attack on South Korea ― an oft-used tactic to show that North Korea’s military should be taken seriously, even under new leadership. Nothing happened. Instead the state announced it would release prisoners, the first general amnesty in seven years. And then, for the first time, it agreed to allow a Western news agency, the Associated Press, to open an office in Pyongyang.

Also this month, North Korea told Washington it would freeze uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons if the United States offered “confidence-building” measures, such as increased food aid. That offer may prove meaningless, as so many similar proposals have in the past. But the state hadn’t agreed to anything quite like that before.

Still, we can’t know what’s in Kim’s head. In 2010, his father plucked him from virtual invisibility and made him a four-star general, though he doesn’t appear to have served in the military, even for a day. Instantly that made him the heir apparent ― impossible to approach, difficult to read as the establishment began its authorship of the Kim Jung-un hagiography.

Today, however, Kim can’t help but see what’s happening in a nearby state, Burma ― until now, the second-most reclusive state in Asia after his own. With a few tentative steps to open the state, the Western world is embracing, even extolling Burma’s government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited. This month, the U.S. restored full diplomatic relations and invited Burma to send an ambassador to Washington.

That’s the sort of recognition North Korea covets more than most anything else. It’s no coincidence that Kim’s first approach to a Western state was his message to Washington offering to freeze enrichment.

Right now, Kim’s tutors are still marching him through his choreographed coronation. They’ve posed him sitting as tall as he can on a white horse, standing on a bluff lecturing his generals while wagging a finger in their faces, climbing out of a tank and touring an army base while state-run television called him “a military genius” ― even though he is so young that the government is embarrassed to release his age (probably 27).

North Korea wants attention and recognition more than anything else. Hard as it may be, particularly during an election year, once Kim’s dramaturgy is over, Washington should find a way to reach out. There may never be a better time.

By Joel Brinkley

Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times. ― Ed.

(Tribune Media Services)