Vassal no more: Kim Jong-un's body language with Xi, Putin says he's one of the big boys now 

[A STUDY OF KIM JONG-UN 10]

Feb. 28, 2019, is a day North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will never forget. It is the date of the "no deal Hanoi summit," in which U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of negotiations in Vietnam, an insult the North Korean leader had never experienced before. Could Kim himself have ever imagined that, just over six years later, he would stand shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of China and Russia at the viewing gallery of Tiananmen Square in Beijing in September last year?

Kim’s elevated strategic status is a reality. He is no longer in a hurry. Even if Trump sends another overture, his new position would be to casually ignore it. How did the young leader of Northeast Asia’s poorest nation, once treated merely as a joke, reach his current position? What choices did Kim make to overcome the failure of the Hanoi summit, and how has North Korea changed as a result of those choices? How has this change altered South Korea’s security environment? We must now deal with a Kim of a different caliber. That is why we must study him now. - Ed.

It was China's massive Victory Day celebration at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 3 last year.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin stood side by side on the rostrum overlooking the 80th anniversary ceremony.

Kim, finally taking the spot where his grandfather, a figure regarded almost as god-like in North Korea, had stood more than 70 years earlier, must have — in a single breath — felt the passage of eras.

Foreign media also took note of Kim standing as an equal alongside Xi and Putin.

Bloomberg assessed that Kim's presence "marks another milestone in his transformation from isolated pariah to a global player benefiting from strengthened ties with his allies."

Within the existing framework of North Korea-China-Russia solidarity, North Korea had been more of a dependent variable, buffeted by the strategic decisions of China and Russia. But now it has reinvented itself as an equal partner, shouldering one of the pillars of an anti-American coalition.

What was particularly striking was the moment Kim gestured toward Xi and struck up a conversation as the DF-61 (Dongfeng-61) intercontinental ballistic missile passed during the military parade — a scene that encapsulated how dramatically Kim's standing had shifted in just a few years. Had it been the deferential Kim Jong-un of 2018, when inter-Korean, North Korea-U.S. and trilateral summits were in full swing, such an attitude toward Xi would have been unimaginable.

In just seven years, everything about Kim Jong-un's demeanor toward Xi Jinping had changed — down to where his eyes focused and what they conveyed.

Kim was saying with his body that he would no longer stand behind anyone or cast his eyes downward before them.

An analysis of six North Korea-China summits found unmistakable shifts in the way Kim carries himself before Xi.

Kim Yeo-jeong, CEO of Jium & Gitdeum, a personal branding research institute specializing in nonverbal behavior, assessed that "Kim Jong-un's attitude toward Xi has gradually shifted from a junior seeking support to an equal strategic partner."

From behind Xi to beside him

The JoongAng Ilbo, together with Jium & Gitdeum, conducted a focused analysis of the interactions between the two leaders across six summits — beginning with the March 2018 Beijing summit.

The findings showed that at Kim's first summit with Xi, he maintained a consistently ceremonial smile, with only the corners of his mouth slightly raised rather than a full smile.

Rather than meeting Xi's gaze directly, he looked downward or to the side with a somewhat stiffened expression.

When speaking, he leaned his upper body slightly forward, listening attentively to Xi's words. Hand movements and gestures were nearly absent.

He also tended to walk behind Xi — a posture that, like a subordinate following a superior, reflected his awareness of his place in the hierarchy with China, according to the institute's analysis.

Kim had sought out Xi to secure an ally as dialogue between North Korea and the United States began to open up — but until just before that meeting, the North Korea-China relationship had been at a low point. In February 2013, just before Xi assumed the presidency, Kim had conducted North Korea's third nuclear test; in December of that year, he executed his uncle Jang Song-thaek, who had been the strongest link between Pyongyang and Beijing.

Xi, too, made no effort to conceal his discomfort, and even visited South Korea on a state visit before North Korea in 2014.

As the United States approached North Korea, the North Korea-China relationship also began to strategically re-tighten — but up to that point, Kim had gone more than six years since taking power without receiving Xi's "blessing." The visible distance between the two leaders at their summit may have been a surface expression of that complicated and delicate relationship.

But an analysis of roughly 32 minutes of footage — drawn from North Korean state media coverage of last September's North Korea-China summit in Beijing, focusing on moments of interaction between the two leaders — revealed a changed Kim.

Unlike at the first North Korea-China summit in March 2018, Kim generally held himself upright, maintaining a posture of equality with direct, forward-facing eye contact.

He walked beside Xi — and above all, the frequency with which he lowered or averted his gaze dropped sharply. The rate of downward gaze, which had occurred 1.7 times per minute in 2018, fell to 0.6 times per minute, a 65 percent decrease.

Most notably, Kim was observed adopting what analysts call a "pistol steeple" — a variation of the steeple posture commonly used by Trump and Putin. The steeple gesture is associated with confidence, conviction, authority, and a dominant attitude. Kim's assuming this posture before Xi, analysts said, was an expression of his will to "set a direction and push forward."

Jium & Gitdeum's Kim Yeo-jeong assessed it as "a nonverbal signal showing that Kim Jong-un's perception of his relationship with China has shifted from a hierarchical, listening posture to one of equal strategic partnership."

Hugs, arms around the shoulders with Putin

This shift is not unrelated to Kim's acquisition of Putin as a powerful new ally.

The blood-bond between North Korea and Russia — forged through troop deployments and other means — is something Kim himself forged, not an inheritance from his predecessors, and that makes Putin a figure of special significance to him.

Indeed, when meeting Putin, Kim displayed an openness not seen in summits with other leaders. Some stiffness was apparent at their first summit in Vladivostok in April 2019, but by the September 2023 meeting at Vostochny, he no longer concealed his laughter when in Putin's presence, showing a clear tendency to express his emotions.

Physical contact between the two leaders was particularly pronounced at the June 2024 Pyongyang summit, as the North Korea-Russia relationship moved into a new phase of closeness ahead of troop deployments to Ukraine.

Putin had traveled via Yakutsk, the capital of the Sakha Republic in Russia's Far East, before arriving in Pyongyang — touching down at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport only at 2 a.m., a day after his scheduled arrival. Yet Kim waited until the early hours to receive him in person, greeting him with a hug and a pat on the back. Kim was also photographed giving Putin a thumbs-up.

Putin's late arrival compressed what had been planned as a two-day, one-night schedule into a day trip — but the depth of engagement, if anything, increased. Putin presented Kim with an Aurus, known as the "Russian Rolls-Royce," and the two took turns at the wheel, putting their friendship on display. Kim broke into a hearty laugh on multiple occasions.

In footage from last September's North Korea-Russia summit in Beijing, broadcast by North Korean state media, Putin was not observed using the steeple gesture — one of his signature moves, most recently seen before Trump at the Alaska summit in August last year. Its absence when meeting Kim may be evidence that he regards Kim with a degree of comfort and ease.

Across four North Korea-Russia summits — drawn from 120 minutes of publicly available North Korean state media footage — Putin and Kim embraced seven times (average duration: 4.2 seconds), put arms around each other's shoulders four times (8.5 seconds), made arm-to-arm contact 15 times (13 seconds) and exchanged whispered words on eight occasions (3.8 seconds).

Kim laughed heartily 23 times in Putin's presence, with his laughter registering 20 to 25 decibels louder than the surrounding conversation of 50 to 60 decibels. Of those laughs, 82 percent were Duchenne smiles — genuine expressions in which both the corners of the mouth and the muscles around the eyes move simultaneously.

Equal in posture, but words lean toward Beijing

Kim Jong-un's diplomatic expressions were more open when with Putin.

Yet an analysis of Kim's words as they appear in the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling party, reveals a somewhat different picture. Aimed at a domestic audience, the Rodong Sinmun is a distillation of what Kim most wants his people to hear.

The JoongAng Ilbo commissioned Speechlog, a firm specializing in AI-based big data analysis, to jointly analyze the entirety of the Rodong Sinmun's coverage over ten years — 137,513 articles and approximately 18 million text data points from January 2016 to January 2026.

When broken down by period, the proportion of language in which Kim referenced China in conciliatory terms stood at 70 percent during the 2016–2017 period focused on nuclear development; rose to 83.3 percent during the 2018–February 2019 period of active inter-Korean, North Korea-U.S., and trilateral summitry; dipped to 64.7 percent immediately after the collapse of the North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi in 2019; and climbed back to 75.0 percent from 2023 onward.

The proportion of conciliatory language toward Russia over the same periods shifted as follows: 55.6 percent to 77.8 percent, 71.4 percent and 69.2 percent. Except for the period immediately after the February 2019 Hanoi no-deal, Kim used more conciliatory language toward China than toward Russia throughout.

This may reflect the reality of a North Korean system in which, whether Kim likes it or not, survival without economic dependence on China is not viable. Kim's heart may point toward Moscow — but his head, it seems, remains fixed on Beijing.

BY SHIM SEOK-YONG [[email protected]]