Kim’s trip to China marks transformation from shunned pariah to confident diplomat

Tokyo: Kim Jong Un put on a command performance this week at a gathering of some two dozen world leaders in China, striding with confidence and a broad grin across one of the biggest international stages of his 14-year career as North Korea’s leader.

As Kim returns home Friday, his time in Beijing marks a stunning transformation from his first tentative, violent years in power, when some analysts suggested the inexperienced young leader would struggle to survive threats to his rule.

Serious diplomacy with a large group of leaders was unimaginable.

But in Beijing, Kim looked like the leader his propaganda services have constantly sought to portray: an important — crucial, even — player in world affairs, entirely at home with the biggest hitters in Eurasia.

Beginning in 2018, when he and US President Donald Trump held the first of their much-publicised meetings, Kim has emerged as a far different, far more confident leader than when he was thrust into power after his father’s death in 2011.

Granted, he is not yet appearing at the United Nations or established Western global forums. And the attendees in Beijing — which didn’t include leaders from the US, Western Europe or Japan — showed little interest in pressing him on widespread concerns about human rights violations or his nuclear weapons. But the events this week are a watershed in his use of international diplomacy to advance his largely secluded nation’s aims.

He deftly handled his two biggest allies, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, laughing with them, pledging enduring assistance to Moscow in its war against Ukraine, and strengthening a sometimes shaky relationship with China. He confidently rubbed shoulders with world leaders at a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

He even felt self-assured enough to bring his young daughter, and possible successor, along for the ride.

“He now appears a seasoned realist and political survivor. In addition to human rights violations and nuclear missile development, Kim has added calculated diplomacy to his authoritarian toolkit,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

For decades, the biggest trip, internationally, for a North Korean leader was an occasional armoured train ride to China, where he was somewhat condescendingly feted by his country’s only real ally, an economic, diplomatic and military lifeline in a neighbourhood filled with enemies.