For many people, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a caricature dictator or a geopolitical curiosity — a portly ruler comically posing in front of missile launches or factory lines.
But Anna Fifield, who has visited North Korea 12 times, thinks this is all wrong.
"There's a common perception that he's crazy [or he's] a James Bond-style villain, and he really lends himself to that with his outfit and his haircut and things like that," Fifield tells ABC RN's Take Me To Your Leader.
"But he has been actually very, very strategic and smart in how he's approached the job of being a dictator."
Since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea, has been ruled by three generations of the Kim family: Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and the current Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
After taking the reins of the world's most closed country in 2011, Kim Jong Un has consolidated power in a dramatic fashion, showing no signs of letting that slip any time soon.
The early life of Kim Jong Un
There are scant details about the early life of Kim Jong Un.
"Everything about the Kim family is a state-held secret," says Fifield, the Asia-Pacific editor at the Washington Post and author of The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un.
This includes something as basic as Kim's date of birth. But, on one of her visits to North Korea, Fifield was able to find this out.
"I tracked down his maternal aunt who acted as his caregiver … She told me that she absolutely knew when his birthday was, because she had her own son at the same time. She remembers changing Kim Jong Un's nappies," she says.
Although the North Korean government has never confirmed the exact date, it's believed he was born on January 8, 1984, the third son of Kim Jong Il.
"When he was eight years old, his father threw a birthday party for him … and presented him with a general's uniform with stars on the epaulettes," Fifield says.
"Real-life generals and Workers' Party officials bowed to him and saluted him."
It's believed that at 10, Kim got his first car (a Mercedes); at 11, he got his first gun; and at 12, he was sent to a school in Switzerland.
Despite coming from the so-called hermit kingdom, he embraced elements of the West, which "apparently included Jean-Claude Van Damme and Michael Jordan posters on his bedroom wall", Fifield says.
But this taste of freedom in Switzerland during the 1990s didn't influence how Kim would run his own country down the track.
"[Kim knew] he absolutely needed to keep this anachronistic regime intact, because that was the only thing that was ensuring his family's survival and its position and its wealth in North Korea," Fifield says.
From teen to supreme leader
Kim Jong Un kept busy when he returned to North Korea.
He received two university degrees, and then climbed the political ladder. He was given a post on the National Defense Commission and named a "daejang", or a four-star general — despite his lack of military experience.
Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean Army lieutenant general, says Kim was able to rise through the ranks "because he was able to understand his own fate".
"He was going to protect the Kim dynasty … The other siblings were not as good as him [at this]," he said.
In December 2011, his father, the 70-year-old Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack, and Kim Jong Un was hailed as the great successor.
Aged 27, Kim became the head of the ruling Workers' Party, the state and the military. His title was North Korea's supreme leader.
And he was quick to consolidate power.
"In those early days, he was really reliant on the old guard in North Korea. He kept his father's military chief, and propaganda chief, and the uncle who knew where all the money was and had good relations with China," Fifield says.
But once Kim absorbed all the institutional knowledge, the old guard wasn't all that necessary.
"They knew too much, they could potentially challenge him for power. So once these people were no longer of any use to him, one by one, they disappeared … Or were publicly executed to send a message," she says.
'I can come get you'
Chun is well versed in how Kim runs his country.
"North Korea is a model dictatorship," he says.
"[Kim] inherited a system that has its foundations on terror, murder, executions, torture, you name it … Kim Jong Un uses brainwashing, as well as rewards, and, of course, terrorising.
"Public executions [are carried out] in a very brutal way. It's not just hanging. They normally shoot people, but they also put them to the torch [or burn them], like in medieval Europe. And these executions are conducted in public in front of children."
But one of Kim's most audacious killings was carried out far from the North Korean capital Pyongyang.
On February 13, 2017, his half-brother Kim Jong Nam was assassinated with a nerve agent in the bustling Kuala Lumpur International Airport. This was widely believed to be on the orders of the supreme leader.
"Kim Jong Un was really sending a message … He was saying to would-be critics, would-be defectors anywhere: 'It doesn't matter where you are or who you are, I can come get you'," Fifield says.
Living 'like slaves under the Kim regime'
Over recent decades, waves of North Koreans have either attempted to or successfully fled their country.
Hyunseung Lee was one of them.
Lee lived in North Korea for almost three decades, and the Kim family played a defining role in what he believed and who he was.
"[I was] mostly brainwashed. There was no room for me to think other things."
He offers an example: "The media said that the hamburger was invented by General Kim and his family."
It was not only the absolute control of information — Lee says there was a "brutality" about the way the government ran the country and treated its citizens.
Lee's father was a high-ranking official in the government, which led to opportunities like being able to travel internationally for study and business.
And while in China for work, Lee became aware of the many shortcomings of his home country, which then made him start questioning the ruling Kim family. So in 2014, Lee and his family left, never to return.
"Living in North Korea like slaves under the Kim regime was not the life we wanted any longer," he says.
However, since Lee fled around a decade ago, there has been a notable change in the number of people leaving the country.
Fifield says one of the big surprises of the last few years is "how Kim Jong Un has effectively ushered in this zero defectors era".
"Almost nobody has escaped from North Korea in the past few years … I think that speaks to how tight [Kim Jong Un's] grip is on the country," she says.
In terms of other changes, Fifield says there have been some economic improvements in recent years — but this has been confined to the elite in Pyongyang or the so-called "Pyonghattan" class.
"[Kim] has been very much focused on that 1 per cent who keeps him in power, and has shown no care at all for the rest of North Korea," Fifield says.
A Trump Tower in Pyongyang?
Kim Jong Un's biggest moments on the international stage were his meetings with then-US president Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019.
Lee was asked to advise the Trump administration ahead of the meetings.
At the time, Lee believed Kim Jong Un could be interested in developing tourism.
"So we gave the Trump administration advice that if — that's a big if — Kim Jong Un was willing to give up a nuclear weapon, maybe president Trump could offer a Trump Tower in Pyongyang," he says.
But Lee adds he thought Kim would never give up all nuclear weapons and that improving the broader economic conditions of everyday North Koreans was "not his priority".
While the summits did not see any great success in the longer term, Chun says "at least they talked".
"We had to try it once. It's unfortunate for the Korean people that it didn't work, but that was no surprise to me," he says.
The next US presidential election is only months away and there's a strong possibility Donald Trump may return to the White House in 2025.
"North Korea would love for Donald Trump to become president again," Fifield says.
"You better believe that they have read The Art of the Deal from cover to cover many times. They know that he is transactional, that he is narcissistic, that they can cut a deal with him."
Safety for the region
So what has Kim Jong Un's leadership meant for the safety of the Asian region?
"It's [been] a nightmare," Chun says.
"First, he has finished nuclear weapons. He now has a working nuclear warhead. Secondly, he has very successful and complete delivery [capabilities] that threatens the whole of North-East Asia."
"It's a huge problem for the Korean people, for North-East Asia and for the whole of the world."
Kim has also forged a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with North Korea supplying munitions to Russia for its war in Ukraine, and Russia able to provide nuclear know-how.
"I think [this relationship] is both extremely dangerous and extremely significant," Fifield says.
In this uncertain, potentially dangerous time, Kim is here to stay, Fifield says. But she adds that the biggest risk to Kim Jong Un could be Kim Jong Un.
"I would say — and I'm not really joking — that I think the biggest risk to Kim Jong Un is his health. When you look at him, he's 40 years old, he does not look like a healthy man," she says.
"He's clearly not doing the one thing that he could do to ensure his longevity, which is to look after himself. He needs to listen to whatever his doctor is telling him."
"But I would say you'd be a brave doctor to tell Kim Jong Un to give up the red wine and steak and start on the treadmill."
