So was it a hydrogen bomb or not? The answer, for the reasons elegantly laid out by Asia expert Sean King, may be largely irrelevant. But that doesn’t mean North Korea’s latest nuclear test isn’t revelatory.
Almost four years into Kim Jong-un’s reign, the contours of his domestic policy are becoming apparent. Forget bread–North Korea’s food situation remains precarious. Kim is instead offering his people nukes and circuses.
Kim Jong-un may have jettisoned his father’s policy of songun, or putting the military first; it’s certainly true that he has weakened the power of the armed forces and elevated the authority of the Korean Workers’ Party in its place. But Kim has now clearly doubled down on his country’s nuclear program, which the regime views (probably accurately) as essential to its survival. We now know that the impoverished nation will spare no expense on its nuclear program, even if doing so upsets its most crucial ally.
As for circuses? Think of the farcical ski mountains and waterparks that Kim has thrown up, even while failing to feed his people. The idea seems to be to placate Pyongyang’s new “middle class” with baubles, while simultaneously maintaining a campaign of ferocious political repression. These are frightening times for the North Korean “elites,” such as they are. Kim Jong-un has shown no compunction about purging or even executing party cadres. But the carrot to his stick is, evidently, Masikryong.
Barring the collapse of the regime, there will be no true change in North Korea. Kim Jong-un is evidently smart enough to realize that if lets even a narrow beam of sunshine in, that will mean the undoing of his regime. Better to keep his people fully in the dark, he has reasoned. The greatest trick Kim Jong-un ever pulled was convincing some people that he might be a “reformer.”
