Taking the World Stage (Full Episode) | North Korea: Inside the Mind of a Dictator

kim jong-un is the world's most dangerous dictator boss of a ruthless communist dynasty that has ruled north korea for 75 years there is this perception that he is a cartoon character kind of doctor evil villain right but kim jong-un really is no joke he is a ruthless dictator hellbent on staying in power early in his rule kim jong-un wiped out his enemies then supercharged his nuclear arsenal but kim's greatest challenge lies ahead the world is changing to survive kim must change with it and bring his country into the modern age how far can he stray from what his father and his grandfather have created in trying to portray himself as a modern leader without losing control [Music] [Music] more provocation from the rogue nation of north korea as new reports surface that pyongyang is preparing for its next nuclear test north korea showing the world its new intercontinental ballistic missile this comes after president trump said a major conflict with north korea is possible little rocket man we can't have mad men out there shooting rockets all over the place [Music] in 2017 kim jong-un achieved his family's long-standing ambition developing a nuclear missile capable of striking north korea's mortal enemy the united states my name is jung pak i used to work at the cia on korea issues the premier product that we would produce is the president's daily brief which i wrote often the toughest part is leadership intentions [Music] when it comes to what's in somebody's mind that is the most difficult part i spent my entire career trying to crawl inside kim jong-un's head what we learned is that not only was he an apt student of the legacy of his grandfather and father but that he was also bigger badder and bolder in terms of how aggressive he was [Music] the missiles and his weapons are now more powerful more dangerous more reliable and more mobile and that's what makes north korea under kim jong-un a much scarier place and a much scarier adversary [Music] but kim has a problem cut off from the outside world his country's economy is on its knees north korea has been facing u.s sanctions since the korean war and they've just gotten progressively tougher and tougher so it's a real struggle i think for kim jong-un to push his country forward this is a country that has chronic food shortage it's isolated from the outside world kim jong-un knows that in the long run it's untenable for him to provide for his people to bring his country into the modern age and maintain his grip on power kim must lift the us-led sanctions banning international trade with north korea in 2018 he makes his opening move on june 12th in singapore i'll be meeting with kim jong-un to pursue a future of peace and security for the world for the whole world [Music] in 2018 kim leaves korea for only the third time as leader for a historic meeting with president trump in singapore [Music] [Applause] [Music] the singapore summit it really was his big debut internationally kim jong-un's coming out those were incredible scenes [Music] i think that's a very telling example of the image that he wants to portray to his people key thing actually i'm very charming i'm funny i'm flexible i'm spontaneous and it's completely the reverse of what we may have thought of the north korean leader [Music] in singapore north korea's reclusive dictator takes his first steps on the world stage i'm john bolton i was a national security advisor for president trump for me it was almost surreal to think that this was actually happening a mistake in my view but it was a historic first [Music] [Music] so it was very clear in the meeting that kim was very much in control he was observing trump very carefully early in the meeting kim asked trump what do you think of me just testing people like that that shows a level of confidence i mean what do you think of me as an invitation to say you're a tyrannical dictator oppressing 25 million people and i don't trust the word you say that would have been an accurate answer but it could have been a meeting stopper thank you very much everybody thank you but of course trump gave him a very glowing uh review he was smart and so on and so mr forth excellent relationship thank you thank you very much kim comes prepared with a strategy for dealing with the american president [Music] there's a kind of magic that can happen when these two leaders get together and i have to say what i saw it looked like a bromance [Music] the north koreans studied whatever they could to try to understand how president trump thinks [Music] his psychology how to flatter him and actually the north koreans know how to do that very very well [Music] kim jong-un sent an envoy with a massive handwritten letter north korea is very old school in a sense uh they're not gonna send email attachments they're very formal it was something that charmed president trump that he got this massive handwritten letter [Music] it was kind of a rambling conversation i was mostly worried that trump not give away too much but there was a discussion about joint south korea and u.s war games as trump called them which he agreed to give up it was a concession to kim that none of us on the u.s side knew was coming okay it obviously made kim very happy thank you very much it's fantastic i was really being tough and so was he and we'll go back and forth and then we fell in love okay no really he wrote me beautiful letters and they're great letters we fell in love [Music] [Applause] kim has begun to reinvent himself as a legitimate world leader he returns to his people a conquering hero the united states is north korea's chief adversary it is the central enemy [Music] so if kim can stand shoulder to shoulder with the u.s president that is of itself a kind of victory [Music] kim jong-un can tell his people we are taken seriously by the most powerful leader in the world [Music] [Applause] well [Music] during the course of 2018 kim jong-un has proven himself to be very savvy and calculating in the way he has dealt with the outside world luring donald trump out kim jong-un kind of set off a race to to meet him xi jinping in china nobody wanted to be left out we suddenly saw this huge flurry of summits taking place and it seemed like all of the leaders wanted to meet with kim jong-un north korea is a very impoverished country but it has nuclear weapons kim jong-un can blow up half the planet if he chooses to in a major war and that's what gives him an a huge leverage that otherwise he would never have [Music] when he met with putin in russia putin is very famous for meeting leaders across the world very very late well in vladivostok it was putin who waited for kim jong-un he wants to show the world that you know what even between friends we have the upper hand but opening his secretive hermit kingdom to the outside world carries dangers for kim jong-un at the start of his rule he encouraged foreigners to set up businesses in special trading zones near the chinese border [Music] one of the first outsiders to arrive was south korean-born u.s citizen kim dong-chul indian soil [Music] foreign [Music] my [Music] foreign [Music] god [Music] so secrets to the cia for four years before he was betrayed by an informant and arrested [Music] um [Music] [Music] foreign the agent was sentenced to 10 years hard labor he had become a pawn in an international chess game between kim and the west two years later kim meets with us hostage negotiators to build on his warming relationship with president trump we do have breaking news right now president trump tweeting moments ago that three detained americans have been released from north korea vienna [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] in releasing his hostages kim jong-un bolsters his image as a modern civilized leader and buys credit with president trump i want to thank kim jong-un who really was excellent to these three incredible people i really think he wants to do something and bring that country into the real world february 2019 kim jong-un sets out on a 2500 mile journey the destination vietnam and a second crucial meeting with president trump the prize winning a deal to lift the economic sanctions crippling his country [Music] when he went to hanoi i think he felt very confident he very unusually announced through the state media in north korea that this summit was going to happen that he thought this was all going to go very well for him you know the stakes were very very high from kim jong-un's side he wanted to show his people that you know what i will make peace with donald trump i will be the one north korean leader who shakes hands and signs a deal with the u.s president that was the promise kim jong-un made as he left the train station in pyongyang [Music] [Music] on the first night of the summit the two leaders meet for a dinner of north korean steak served well done for trump and rare for kim so this was the dinner before the summit the night before kim jong-un looks very comfortable and confident and he must have put on a bit of a a show president trump relayed a story that kim jong-un told about how yeah he executed his uncle and then displayed his head for the rest to see in this day and age to see that kind of brutality very much like the heads of those beheaded by henry the eighth were stuck outside the tower of london if you could have heard that dialogue when you would pay for that dialogue i think it goes to show that kim jong-un deep inside wanted to reach out to donald trump in a way that no other leader had reached out to donald trump which is you know what mr president let's talk about raw power i will tell you what raw power is i will give you an example of what i did to my uncle donald trump respects raw power and that's what kim jong-un wanted to emphasize a lot of great ideas being thrown about i think very importantly the relationship is you know just very strong with the dinner table talk out of the way the two leaders get down to business analysts say there is considerable pressure on both trump and kim jong-un to come up with a more substantive deal than the one they struck in singapore kim desperately needs sanctions to be lifted trump has got to come back with something more substantive than they got in june the north koreans estimated that president trump needed a foreign policy victory and that they would sign a deal kim jong-un thought it was a sure thing so they got down to the nitty-gritty of this nuclear deal but it can quickly go sour in his opening gambit kim offers a limited deal to shut down north korea's largest nuclear testing site in return for the complete lifting of all sanctions trump was not prepared to make a partial deal he was prepared to make only the big deal which is the complete elimination of north korea's nuclear weapons program but kim kept pressing for his more limited deal [Music] like many communist negotiators he's very good at saying the same thing over and over again [Music] the germans have a word for it they call it sits fleisch and it means exactly what it sounds like that he'd just be prepared to sit there for as long as it took so trump and kim went around and around [Music] we could see the frustration that kim felt that he wasn't getting through so there came a point where kind of the silence descended on the room and lasted and it was at that point i think everybody realized this meeting is really over astonishing the second summit between the u.s and north korea is over the headline here no deal the two leaders motorcades rolled away from the summit site within minutes of each other sometimes you have to walk they literally left a lunch on the table in hanoi and went off back to their respective capitals so i think it was a miscalculation kim jong was very very sure he could reach a deal in hanoi so on the long train ride back to north korea kim jong-un must have asked himself who am i going to blame for this failure who will be the person who will fall by the sword kim jong-un was very angry he lost face and that he didn't have a deal he left empty-handed and that has increased the pressure on kim jong-un since [Music] failure to reach a deal with trump is a major setback in kim's bid to normalize his regime at least three of his officials are thought to have been executed or purged as punishment kim was returning to the system of terror that has sustained his dynasty for three generations in north korea the border is not just solid it is highly impenetrable except for the joint security area where there is no fence [Music] [Applause] [Music] a north korean soldier called o chung song the top soldier in the korean people's army stationed right along the 38th parallel only the creme de la creme are posted along the border but he dashed across the line running for his life he was shot at by north korean guards [Music] as the north korean soldier lies wounded in the demilitarized zone which separates north and south korea troops stage a rescue attempt he was miraculously saved he was then taken by helicopter to a korean hospital it was discovered that there were many worms in his body he was a healthy soldier who got the best treatment in north korea but he was still suffering from malnutrition and this was a shock to many people who are watching what's happening in north korea [Music] this particular video must have shown kim jong-un that security along the border was paramount because even the most trusted lieutenants were ready to jump ship i think kim jong-un would have been very angry at the generals who allowed this to happen under their watch and i'm sure they were reprimanded and imprisoned or even you know even worse punishment for this [Music] to clamp down on a rising tide of defectors kim has increased border security and threatened would-be traitors with severe punishments [Music] but the dictator remains torn between his allegiance to the family dynasty in the pull of his teenage years in the democratic west [Music] shortly after he took power he tracked down an old friend in europe but [Music] is [Music] [Music] is foreign [Music] when you spent your most formative years in a very westernized country studying in switzerland as as a teenager that will stick with you is this nostalgia [Music] field he will never be able to have their life back again but if he invites his childhood friend to come back to north korea it's like satisfying a part of his life that he yearns for but he can never replay this champion [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] kim's two meetings with the u.s president had failed to deliver a deal on north korea's nuclear arsenal in june 2019 trump rekindles the bromance president trump touching down in south korea just a short while ago after having extended an apparently impromptu invitation to the leader of north korea i just put out a a feeler because i i don't know where he is right now he may not be in north korea but i said if chairman kim would want to meet i'll be at the border certainly we seem to get along very well [Music] the meeting at the dmz was entirely impromptu he tweets an invitation to the north korean dictator to meet and north koreans finally do respond and donald trump marveled that apparently kim jong-un follows me on twitter [Music] after the breakdown of the talks in hanoi kim jong-un desperately wants and needs the opportunity to meet again with president trump [Music] kim jong-un needed some imagery to tell his people things are fine we're still friends i've got it under control the north koreans would have loved imagery of kim jong-un slowly making his way to the demarcation line president trump was there more quickly clearly more anxious to cross over to the north korean side they would have loved that the idea that an american president wants to step into north korean territory propaganda gold suddenly donald trump is walking with kim jong-un in north korea you know the first american leader to set foot in north korea [Music] and then uh they walked back over to the south korean side come on and we did not know that it was truly going to happen and it was a scene of total chaos [Music] suddenly it appears that they're going to be going inside this building and the north koreans actually try to block the american press from going over [Music] stop press stop [Music] [Music] and so stephanie grisham donald trump's press secretary essentially decked a north korean security guard who is trying to block the american press from following the two leaders into this room [Music] you know this was an extraordinary photo op but it accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the photo op there's no question today's meeting was an historic first but after two summits and one impromptu meeting north korea's nuclear program remains fully in place with no breakthrough in sight in the fall of 2019 the dictator changes course in a symbolic statement to his people he makes a pilgrimage to the sacred mount pektu mythical birthplace of the kim dynasty [Music] it's not just that kim jong-un likes riding horses there's another purpose here it is part of the propaganda [Music] he's really focused on a particular king kim dong-myung and kim jong-un is a warrior who's often shown fighting off foreign influence and bringing the country together on a white horse and so it's a way to remind his people that i am the successor of that heritage and i have a right to rule turning his back on president trump kim threatens to deliver a so-called christmas gift to the united states jong-un was disappointed he could not convince mr trump i think he realized okay if trump will not negotiate with me i will make a bigger hammer [Music] so that's a message that i think he wanted to send the world i will show you how powerful i am i will show you who's really boss in this neighborhood and it's me kim jong-un [Applause] october 2020 kim celebrates three generations of his family's rule his talks with trump have failed to remove the sanctions holding back his economy how long can he maintain the loyalty of his people [Music] [Music] in allowing the people to see him cry kim jong-un on october 10th wanted to show that he's human too he wanted to show that vulnerability yes i am almost like a god and i was born to lead this country but i'm a father like you i care about my children like you i care about our future like you so it was designed to be a particular show of humility and to show his personality but i can't help but think it's also theater and so we are moving into a phase where we have less access and less information because it's so carefully cultivated they want to seem like somebody who actually is in touch with his people but it's very hard for us to tell whether we can trust it [Applause] economically they're in very very deep trouble sanctions pandemic and floods all those problems have combined to make north korea's economy which was already on its knees nearly on its deathbed and yet kim jong-un continues to develop nuclear weapons i think it's very dangerous because if you are cornered into a position where there really is no exit then you might look for extreme solutions [Music] in 2020 kim unveiled the world's largest mobile intercontinental ballistic missile nicknamed the monster despite his attempts to modernize north korea and remake his image kim jong-un remains the dictator of a rogue state that is now more dangerous than ever you can't prevent irrational regimes but you can certainly do everything possible to keep the world's most dangerous weapons out of their hands i think obviously you have to consider the use of force i don't think the end of north korea is likely to be pleasant in any circumstances it's thought kim now has at least 40 nuclear missiles and is close to completing a new secret weapon that would pose a greater threat to the west than ever before [Music] they're building a new 3 000 ton submarine with the ability to fire ballistic missiles once they reach certain technical metrics north korea can then put one of these ballistic missiles on a submarine [Music] submarines are very difficult to track it's basically a roving threat and a moving target north korea can then float that submarine out to the pacific ocean and scare the crap out of people in los angeles [Music] a whole other mess of stuff to keep people up at night [Music] [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 526,761

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, national geographic documentary, national geographic full episodes, north korea national geographic, north korea facts, north korea rules, north korea documentary, kim jong un, inside north korea, north korea, north korea army, north korea documentary 2022

Id: 5kB80aO3O0U

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022