문재인의 대북관계를 개선하기위한 노력(?)은 완전히 "나는 완전 쪼다올시다. 김여정 여사님 너무 노여워하지 마옵시고, 몇번 만난 옛정을 생각하셔서, 더이상은 남한의 저한테 며칠전 쏟아 부었던 화풀이는 이제 더 하지 마시옵소서. 국민들에게는 김여사님의 자애로움심을 정말로 최선을 다해 PR 많이 했습니다. 저의 진정성을 믿어 주십시요. 그리고 국민들에게는 이번사건을 "엄중히 주시하고있다" 정도로 엄포를 넣어 표현 했습니다. 지난번 보내드린 선물이 성에 차지 않으셨던 모양인데, 더 많이 보내 드리고 싶었지만, 미국 대통령 트럼프가 망령이 났었는지? 잘 모르겠지만, 자꾸 위협을 해서 그쪽 눈치도 보여서 그랬던 것이니, 널리 해량 하여 주시옵시고, 오빠 되시는 김정은 최고 사령관님께도 저의 말씀을 잘 전해 주셔서, 총사령관 동지께서도 행여나 노여움을 아직도 마음속에 품고 계시다면, 푸시도록 좋은 말씀 해주시옵기를 간절히 원하옵고 앙망드리나이다. 오늘밤도 좋은 꿈 꾸시고 편한잠 주무시옵소서" 남한 국민들이 뽑아서 대통령된 문재인 상서.
이번 개성공단에서 있었던, 대한민국 재산 700억을 기분 나쁘다는 이유로, 세상물정 모르는 어린 풋내기 계집아이가 잿더미로 만들었던 그주인공, 김여정에게 괘씸한 천인 공노할 망나니짖을 당하고도, 문재인 대통령이 그계집에게 보여준 응답의 행동을 요약한 내용을 위에 나타낸 것이다. 참 훌륭한 대한민국 대통령이다. 만세......정부 종합청사건물 옥상의 국기계양대에, 인공기가 곧 펄럭이게 될것으로 짐작이 간다. 만약에 지금의 문재인 대통령의 대북자세가 변하지않고 이대로 이어지게 된다는 전제 하에서 본 느낌이다.
하늘이시여 대한민국 버리지 마시옵소서. 이렇게 대한민국이 무너진다면 너무나 안타깝습니다. 오늘의 잘사는 대한민국을 건설하기위해 지난 50여년간 밤을 낮삼아 "우리는 할수있다"라는 슬로건을 앞세우고, 일부자유를 유보하면서 까지, 앞에서 국민들을 독려하고 이끌어 주셨던 박정희 대통령의 리더쉽속에서, 한손에는 건설의 곡괭이를 다른 한손에는 북괴의 침략을 막기위한 국방을 튼튼히 하면서, 국민모두가 함께 건설의 합창을 쉬지않고 하면서, 5천년 역사이래 처음 이룩한 풍요함을 지켜주시옵소서.....60만 대군을 지휘할 통수권자의 정신이 불행하게도 Dementia 중증입니다. 그래서 무용지물이 됐습니다. 그래서 더 비나이다. 기도하나이다.
Hong Kong (CNN)On a crisp winter day two years ago, Kim Yo Jong took her first step to becoming the powerful politician her father thought she would be.
It was February 10, 2018. The youngest child of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il
had already made history by becoming the first member of her family
since the end of the Korean War to set foot in the southern half of the
Korean Peninsula.
The night before,
she had attended the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in
Pyeongchang, South Korea. She sat behind South Korean President Moon
Jae-in and watched as hundreds of athletes marched together under a flag
representing a unified Korea, a country carved in half in the aftermath
of World War II by the Soviet Union and the United States with little
regard for the thousands of families that were split apart.
Kim
applauded these athletes alongside dignitaries like Moon, US Vice
President Mike Pence and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It was a
tremendous photo op. But a trip to the Blue House, South Korea's
presidential residence, was a whole different ball game.
Kim Yo Jong would be the first member of North Korea's ruling family ever to enter the halls of power of a sworn enemy.
The
morning after the opening ceremony, Kim exited a black sedan to enter
the Blue House. She ambled down a red carpet with immaculate posture and
her head held high, exuding the confidence of a woman who had been
meeting important world leaders for years. She dressed all in black and
clutched a black briefcase in her left hand, dark tones that all drew
attention to the red lapel pin over her heart emblazoned with the faces
of her smiling father and grandfather.
As
she approached the building's threshold, she paused and, out of the
corner of her eye, looked to her left. Then she slowed her gait to allow
the man by her side -- a nonagenarian named Kim Yong Nam who was North
Korea's ceremonial head of state at the time -- to enter first, adhering
to Confucian values of respecting one's elders despite the fact her
family is revered with near religious fervor back home.
Kim Yo Jong was North Korea's chief
propagandist at the time, and her ability to craft an image was on full
display in Seoul. She proved to be the perfect emissary for her country:
a savvy, urbane operator who could counter the narrative of her
homeland as a strange, backward, nuclear-armed relic of the Cold War
that allegedly holds more than 100,000 people in forced labor camps.
Park
Ji-won, a former South Korean lawmaker and presidential chief-of-staff,
said after four meetings with Kim Yo Jong, he came away with the
impression of a woman whose intelligence and quiet confidence was beyond
her years.
"She takes after her
father and brother," said Park. "She is very smart and quick thinking.
She is courteous, yet speaks her position clearly."
Kim
left after three days and would be credited for helping lay the ground
work for the first summit between Moon and her older brother, North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un. She was, after all, the one who extended his invitation.
But
the trip also set the stage for something else, a development that's
only become clear in the past several days: that Kim Yo Jong was about
to become the boss when it came to North Korea's relations with South
Korea and arguably the second-most powerful figure in her country,
answerable only to Kim Jong Un.
'The future of unified prosperity'
At 1 a.m. on May 31
this year, the "Fighters for a Free North Korea" gathered on the
southern side of the border, near the demilitarized zone that divides
the Korean peninsula in two.
The
group of North Korean defectors had hoped that by meeting in the middle
of the night, they would avoid the prying eyes of nearby police,
soldiers or passers-by who might take issue with what they were about to
do.
They were on a mission to
bring information about the outside world to their former countrymen.
North Koreans are forbidden from consuming any information that's not
approved by Pyongyang's strict censorship apparatus.
The defectors, led by a man who himself was once targeted by a North Korean assassin wielding a pen armed with poison,
stuffed 20 large balloons with 500,000 leaflets, 500 booklets and 1,000
SD cards filled with content that would surely infuriate Kim Jong Un's
top advisers.
Then they let the
balloons float into the sky, anticipating that as the sun rose, the wind
would push the contraband toward their former home.
Officials in Pyongyang were irate. Information about the outside world is like a virus within North Korea, something that can spread quickly and shatter a society built on a veneer of the Kim family as peerless demigods.
"What
scares North Korea the most is the truth about themselves, the truth
about their regime, the truth about the outside world," said Chun
Yung-woo, a former South Korean diplomat. Chun led his country's
delegation at the Six Party Talks, a multilateral effort to get North
Korea to denuclearize, from 2006 to 2008.
Any insults against the Kims are tantamount to blasphemy, Chun explained, and require a full-throated response.
That responsibility fell to Kim Yo Jong.
Kim
said the leaflets were a direct violation of the agreement reached at
the Inter-Korean summit in April 2018, the very meeting she laid the
groundwork for during her Olympic visit. As part of the deal, both
leaders agreed to cease "all hostile acts and eliminating their means,
including broadcasting through loudspeakers and distribution of
leaflets" along their shared border.
The
text did not differentiate between government-led campaigns and those
spearheaded by private individuals, and the distinction was thought of
as irrelevant inside North Korea. Kim ordered North Korea to cut off all communication with South Korea, including a hotline meant to directly connect the leaders of the two countries.
She
demanded the South Korean government punish the defectors, whom she
called "betrayers," "human scum" and "riffraff who dared hurt the
absolute prestige of our Supreme Leader representing our country and its
great dignity," according to a statement carried by North Korean state
news agency KCNA.
The South Korean
government said it has asked police to investigate the defectors, but
muzzling them could set a bad precedent in a liberal democracy where
citizens enjoy freedom of speech.
However, it became clear this week that North Korea was truly upset.
Thirty
months ago, on that brisk February day when Kim Yo Jong walked into the
Blue House, she thanked Moon Jae-in for caring if she was too cold at
the opening ceremony and writing in the residence guest book that she
looked forward to a "future of unified prosperity."
On Tuesday,
she gave the order to blow up an $8 million building paid for by South
Korea so Moon's government would "pay dearly for their crimes."
Fanning the flames
A
lot can happen in 30 months, and while the leaflets surely had North
Koreans heated, most experts believe they're a spark that could lead to
an inevitable breakdown in relations.
But
it's the tinder below that's to blame for any flames. Unmet
expectations, lofty but unrealistic goals and poor communication set the
stage for a potentially dramatic collapse, and perhaps nowhere was that
more clear than during US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's
second summit in Hanoi last year.
That
summit took place at the end of February 2019, more than a year after
Kim Yo Jong visited South Korea. By that point, her brother had already
met Moon Jae-in, Chinese President Xi Jinping and in a historic first,
President Trump. But despite the apparent breakthrough, working-level
talks between Washington and Pyongyang failed to yield any progress on a
deal trading North Korea's nuclear weapons program for sanctions
relief.
Since it came to light
that the Kim family was pursuing nuclear weapons about 30 years ago,
four different US administrations have tried and failed to get them to
abandon the program. While the carrots have differed, the sticks have
always involved sanctions.
When the Trump administration came to power, the White House kicked it up a notch. As North Korea tested missiles after missile in 2017,
Washington responded by proposing incredibly punitive measures at the
United Nations Security Council in an attempt to hamstring North Korea's
economy. By the end of the year, Pyongyang was barred by international
law from selling almost anything abroad.
So
when Trump and Kim decided to meet in person again, both hoped their
second summit could help their respective sides find common ground.
But
as they haggled in Hanoi over which nuclear facilities to trade and how
much they were worth in terms of sanctions relief, it quickly became
clear that there was a wide gap.
Both
parties abruptly left when they realized they were not going to be able
to agree on the contours of a deal in just several hours.
Lower-level talks have gone nowhere since, and North Korea believes it has been hoodwinked.
Statements
published by important North Korean political figures paint the country
as the aggrieved party, a nation that the United States and South Korea
took advantage of for their own domestic political gains. This
narrative ignores the fact that most experts believe the steps North
Korea has taken so far are largely symbolic and do not preclude the
regime from continuing to develop fissile material and further refine
its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
In North Korea's world, it is the one taking all the diplomatic risks. The Kim regime returned the remains of Americans killed during the Korean War. The Kim regime blew up the tunnels at a nuclear test site. And the Kim regime has so far refrained from testing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.
But
the US-led sanctions that are strangling North Korea's economy are
still in place. The South Koreans, who were supposed to provide economic
assistance and cooperation, are still refusing to do so in order to
abide by international law and avoid running afoul of the United States.
"(The) North Koreans are very
disappointed that the diplomacy with the United States and South Korea
has not yielded what they promised the North Korean people ... a better
living standard" said Joseph Yun, the former US special representative
for North Korea policy.
Yun said the North Koreans "need to explain to their own people" why "their big diplomatic initiative has not yielded anything."
The job seems to belong to Kim Yo Jong. And while she may be new to the game, she's playing it like an old North Korean pro.
Manufacturing crisis
Experts
have for years accused North Korea of manufacturing crises either to
create a sense of urgency in negotiations, to gain the upper hand in
talks, or to sow discord between the United States and South Korea.
After
the Soviet Union and the United States divided Korea in two, the North
became a communist state and the South a capitalist one -- each backed
by the rival side in the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the
North Koreans were left without a powerful benefactor, while the South
Koreans could still rely on a global superpower and treaty ally for
protection thanks to the thousands of American troops and modern
weaponry stationed on the Korean peninsula.
Experts
say that one of North Korea's key objectives is to level the playing
field. And what better way to do that than create chaos driving a wedge
between Washington and Seoul?
The
Kim family may be genuinely upset about the leaflets, but it's clearly
taking a page out of Pyongyang's old geopolitical playbook in an attempt
to force the South Koreans to, as former top State Department Asia
expert Evans Revere described it, "put something really appetizing on
the table, if you will."
"You see
the North Koreans engaged in a very interesting attempt to hold the
South Korean government's feet to the fire by increasing the intensity
and the level of their other rhetoric against South Korea," Revere said.
By many accounts, the Moon
government is eager to provide assistance to North Korea to foster
harmony and cooperation. As chief-of-staff to former President Roh
Moo-hyun, Moon was a key player in what was known as the "Sunshine Policy" in the 2000s, a strategy of engaging and investing in North Korea in order to bring about change.
Today,
Moon must play a particularly difficult balancing act, because his
options for carrots are extremely limited -- almost everything the North
Koreans want from South Korea runs afoul of sanctions spearheaded by
South Korea's treaty ally, the United States.
"The
North Koreans are pretty smart in how they play this game, and if they
can not only get South Korean concessions -- and they're off to a good
start -- but if they can also drive a wedge between Washington and
Seoul, that's a pretty good day's work," Revere said.
The latest major play came Tuesday, when Kim Yo Jong gave the order to destroy the
joint liaison office in the city of Kaesong, a city in North Korea
where Seoul and Pyongyang have worked together on projects during times
of peace.
Kim had hinted in a
statement days earlier that the office, which had sat idle for months,
would be "completely collapsed." No one outside of North Korea could be
sure if that was a metaphor or meant the building would literally be
blown to bits until they heard the actual boom.
The
building was paid for by South Korean taxpayers and meant to facilitate
dialogue and cooperation, so razing it was a bombastic symbol of North
Korea's displeasure -- and a way to communicate that sentiment at a
physical cost of only bricks and mortar.
It
was a brilliant piece of theatrics, sure to grab the attention of the
international media amid a global pandemic, rising racial tensions in
the United States and a deadly conflict brewing on the border of the
world's two most populous nations.
And, according to North Korean state media, the credit goes to Kim Yo Jong.
The youngest Kim takes center stage
When
Kim Yo Jong was just a child, her father allegedly told a Russian
diplomat that she had an aptitude for politics and predicted she might
have a future in it.
History has
proved Kim Jong Il right, and the headline-grabbing decision to demolish
the joint liaison office is unlikely to be the last time the world
hears from Kim Yo Jong.
Experts
believe her rising profile is part of a carefully choreographed
publicity campaign by North Korean state media to signal that she's
being groomed for something. Though there are other members of the Kim
family still alive, Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un and their father and
grandfather are the only ones lionized in North Korean media as members
of what the country calls the "Paektu bloodline," a reference to the mythical mountain on North Korea's border with China.
The fact that she's a Kim trumps the powerful patriarchal forces at play in North Korea, a country where women are mostly expected to be dutiful and subordinate wives and doting mothers before all else.
"You
see her every several months or so being given a new title, a new
position, new responsibilities and checking all the key boxes to
demonstrate her capacities and her responsibilities are growing," said
Revere, the former State Department Asia expert.
"Not
a day that goes by that some of the other newspapers don't have an
article about some statement that's made and photographs of her."
But while the North Koreans hear more from Kim Yo Jong, they seem to be seeing less of Kim Jong Un.
The North Korean leader has been mysteriously absent for a couple of long stretches this year, fueling rumors
about his well-being -- he is overweight and reportedly a heavy drinker
and smoker -- and speculation that Kim Yo Jong's increasing visibility
meant she was being readied as a potential successor should something
occur.
The truth is unlikely to
come out anytime soon. Kim Jong Un's health is one of North Korea's most
closely guarded secrets, on par with the nuclear weapons program,
because it has the potential to dent the carefully curated image of Kim
as the infallible Supreme Leader.
Kim's
sudden absence from the spotlight has precedent -- he disappeared for
several months in 2014, reportedly after ankle surgery. But Kim is a
leader known among his people for keeping a busy schedule and pounding
the pavement. He's constantly photographed interacting with regular
North Koreans, smiling alongside them and even hugging others.
For someone like that to just suddenly vanish from public view for weeks on end is unusual.
Similarly, Kim Yo Jong's own long-term future is far from certain. North Korea is a country driven by paranoia about an impending invasion from its enemies, so everything it does is shrouded in secrecy, including leadership plans.
Some
speculate she's filling the role of bad cop to her brother's good cop,
allowing him the opportunity to swoop in and save the day. Analysts say
getting into a fight with the South Koreans is a great way to boost a
North Korean's street credentials as a tough fighter.
Others believe she's
being propped up to become more than just a North Korean consigliere,
but fill a role more like a vice president: a big player who enjoys the
confidence of her brother and can help ease his workload.
Whatever
is next for Kim Yo Jong, power politics are a dynamic and dangerous
game in North Korea, and tectonic shifts can happen at the drop of a
hat. Analysts say any potential rift with her brother could have dire
consequences, as it did for their uncle, Jang Song Thaek -- who was
executed for treason -- and half-brother Kim Jong Nam, who was
assassinated by North Korean agents in 2017.
But
Kim Yo Jong and Kim Jong Un share an important connection. They lived
together in Switzerland and at home, surrounded by adults and handlers.
Their childhoods were remarkable but uniquely solitary and lonely. They
lost their mother at a young age and their father as young adults.
All they endured, they endured together.
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