Kim Jong-un's decade in power is a game changer for Asia and beyond

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has been largely absent from the global limelight in recent months, yet his domestic power and ability to create trouble abroad appear stronger than ever. A decade into his rule, Kim has already delivered at least 1 potential game changer for not only Asia, but the wider world too - that is, a significant advance in the nation's nuclear armed ballistic missile force.

The huge destructive capability that Kim now has at his disposal - even as North Korea's economy is smaller than a decade ago thanks to a pandemic lockdown, international sanctions, and natural disasters - is shifting the US and wider Western calculus towards the regime. For the new weaponry could provide Kim with tremendous leverage to extract concessions in disputes in the future, while also making foreign-instigated regime change much more difficult.

Another notable Kim achievement has been emerging since 2019 as a key international actor, including by outsmarting Donald Trump in 3 meetings in Singapore in 2018, then in Vietnam, and on the border between North and South Korea in 2019. With little in the way of concessions to the then-US president, despite Trump claiming the "nuclear threat from North Korea is over", Kim became the first North Korean leader to meet with a sitting White House incumbent and was able to spin that in domestic propaganda as the US imperialists capitulating to his growing political power.