Posts Tagged ‘Kim Jong-un’
Yongusil 65: Adam Cathcart on the Footprints of Legitimacy
Pyongyang’s narrative response to the ascension of Kim Jong-un has drawn deep and heavy upon the past, indicating a certain conservatism and “ideological retrenchment,” argues Adam Cathcart in a SOAS-AKS Working Paper in Korean Studies. Director of Research, Robert Winstanley-Chesters, reviews the paper.
Does a New Ambassador Mean a “Reset” In China-North Korea Relations?
With a deep dive into Beijing’s internal bureaucratic politics and Li Jinjun’s predecessors in Pyongyang, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga sheds light on China’s evolving stance toward North Korea.
Moscow vs. Vladivostok: Prospects for a Russia-North Korea Summit
Did Kim Jong-un already meet Xi Jinping in northeast China? And will the North Korean leader show up in Moscow this coming May? A guest voice assesses the potential.
Collapsist Narratives and State Strength: Reading The Interview through Han Sorya’s Jackals
Han Sorya’s conception of Americans as “jackals” is a wartime description of an enemy but one that never went away–in a sense like the war itself. In this essay, David Fields surveys the strength of North Korean state narratives, folding in a very famous Korean War short story and a certain controversial Hollywood film.
Hagiography of the Kims & the Childhood of Saints: Kim Il-sung
In this essay Christopher Richardson explores the childhood hagiography of Kim Il-sung, “the master narrative from which all others derive,” and in so doing locates the origins of regime durability and state legitimacy.