북한 김정은의 정치행위-지도자상(象) 연동성 분석: 김정은의 비핵화의지 여부 검토를 중점으로

Abstract

In October, Kim Jong-un climbed up to the top of Mt. Baekdu riding a white hose. He became the “Third General of Mt. Baekdu” in August last year, replacing his grandmother, Kim Jung-sook. Because Kim Jong-un declared his national goal to be “The Great Nation of Mt. Baekdu” in 2014, it was necessary for him to acquire the symbolic image of the Third General of Baekdu Mountain. Calling the People’s Army as the “Baekdusan Revolutionary Strong Army”, Kim Jong-un emphasized the importance of the army as a vanguard to enter into ‘the Great Nation of Mt. Baekdu,’ and announced that “Nuclear power” as the most precious ‘spiritual food’ for his own country at the top of Baekdu Mountain in the year of 2015, implying that nuclear power is an indispensable factor in entering into the “Great Nation of Mt. Baekdu.” In January 2016, when North Korea successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb, Kim Jong-un stressed out that nuclear weapons were the only secure guarantee for sustaining the North Korean regime. Three months after Kim Jong-un became the third general of Mt. Baekdu, North Korea declared that its nuclear capability had reached the level of completion when launching HwaSung-15 in November 2017. Can you get a sense of Kim Jong-un’s willingness to denuclearize from these North Korea’s diplomatic behaviors? This paper examines the political changes of the Kim Jong-un regime and the leadership images generated by Kim’s political behaviors in chronological order by applying two theories, ‘the symbolic image’ and ‘the creation of the Sureyong image.’ The result indicates that there is a close linkage between Kim Jung-un’s political behaviors and his leadership images. During the regime succession and power building period (2012-2013), Kim acquired the leadership image of “the Sun of the World” by stating ‘the nuclear power state’ in the Constitution for the first time. Kim acquired the leadership image of “an Ideological Prodigy” when formalizing the ideology of Kim Il-sung & Kim Jong-il. During the time of securing leadership after the execution of Jang Sung-taek (2014), he obtained the leadership image of ‘Benevolent Parent’. During the time of processing independent route (2016) when the party rule and constitution were revised, he had acquired the leadership image of ‘Supreme Leader’. During the time of completing the level of Nuclear Armed Forces(2017), he was called as the ‘Third General of Mt. Baekdu’, and in the period of concentrically focusing on Economic Construction(2018), he was called as ‘a leader who leads to paradise’ by his extensive local visits especially the economic sectors. Kim was called as ‘the leader of perseverance’ in the year of 2019 by consistently pushing self-rehabilitation and strenuous efforts responding to the international economic sanctions against North Korea. Kim Jong-un’s leadership images appeared in these periods (2012-2019) are the result of the author’s analysis of Kim Jong-un’s Leadership images represented in ‘Kim Jong-un’s Suryeong image novels (Short Novel)’ published in Chosun Literature. This paper calls for attention to ‘the leader of perseverance’, which is emerging as the representative leadership image of Kim Jong-un in 2019. This idiom demonstrates not only Kim Jong-un’s strong willingness to counter UN economic sanctions, but also his consistent commitment to nuclear armed force.