North Korea's Kim Jong-un: Unlikely Santa Claus

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un Yonhap

By Oh Young-jin

I was looking for a topic that could fit the Christmas holiday season. As I was working Christmas Eve I may have felt cranky because I ended up with an anti-Christmas subject of a sort ― North Korea.

Writing about the subject carried some risks. What risk popped up in my mind first was a need to update this column considering the precarious state of situation, but then I thought I might be able to write one that could cover contingencies until it landed on my spot on Page 9 in the Saturday print edition.

I am coming clean, half expecting flak from some readers who would feel me crass caring only about revisions to my column when there are existential threats such as the North's testing of its long-range missile or exploding a nuclear device at its underground test site. But people like me in the South feel they are less a danger than potential retaliatory action the U.S. might take. After all, hundreds of the North's medium or short range missiles, ready and waiting, have had the southern half of the Korean Peninsula in striking range for years, while the North's Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) are still at a testing stage as is its capability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and make it explode as planned after being hurled over thousands of kilometers.

Some people who have read this far would get impatient and wonder what the North has to do with Christmas or the other way around. I ask them to regard the preceding second paragraph as a disclaimer before I turn pedagogic, further ruin your Yuletide mood or upset St. Nicholas.

On Dec. 3, the North's foreign ministry issued a threat, ""What is left to be done now is the U.S. option and it is entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift it will select to get." The obvious North Korean ultimatum came after Washington refused to lift sanctions on the North and soften its demand for the North's denuclearization. But it was North Korean Kim Jong-un's fault to believe that he could play Trump, the leader of the world's still strongest nation that has a lot more options to choose from than the impoverished rogue state that devotes its scarce resources to building nuclear bombs and making missiles. The North should remind itself that the Soviet Union collapsed after years of competing militarily and otherwise with the United States and that what happened to the Soviets can happen to it.

North Korea's Kim Jong-un pays respects on the eighth anniversary of his father Kim Jong-il's death. Yonhap

What caught the outside world's imagination in the otherwise typical North Korean statement is the phrase, "Christmas gift." Being in December, everybody (almost) is jumping on the word play bandwagon. An official from the Unification Ministry was quoted as saying, "We are not afraid what the North may give us as its Christmas gift."

In the Tuesday interview with The Korea Times at the U.S. Embassy, Ambassador Harry Harris said the U.S. was prepared for whatever Christmas gift came from the North. Harris' answer followed my observation that the Christmas gift started as a western concept and has spread all over the world. But the North, an atheist country that would not allow Christ's birthday to compete with those of the Kim dynasty, is stealing and using it to make the outside world anxious when it is meant to set aside worries and concerns, however briefly.

Being upset about the ruined mood may not be all there is. There is a bigger plot the North is trying to hatch (I know you may think I am getting ahead of my usual logical me!).

Going back to the North's statement, one may come to think that the North wants to play Santa Claus. After all, the plump old man with a potato nose from one too many tipples riding a sled pulled by Rudolph the reindeer is the Christmas gift-giver. (Most readers by now have become adult enough to go through the painful period of realization that there is no Santa and the gifts are from the parents).

Then, the part of the statement: … it is entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift … may remind one of the song, "Santa Claus is coming to town" (I like Mariah Carey's version), that in part says, "He knows if you've been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake …" It is as if Kim Jong-un, leader of the North, were Santa, judging whether the U.S. behaves or not. Maybe, the Swiss-educated Kim finally got his wish to act as Nick through his country's latest threat.

If so, Kim should remember Santa's gifts do not include nukes or ICBMs and perspective gift-receivers take on the feeling of hope or joy instead of anxiety. So when I say that the North has ruined the holiday mood by talking about a "Christmas gift," I would stand for a lot of people.

One thing we can do to beat the party crasher for sure is enjoy it even more. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody (including those wet blankets over there).

Oh Young-jin (foolsdie@gmail.com, foolsdie5@koreatimes.co.kr) is director of content for The Korea Times.