HANOI, Vietnam — Kim Jong-un’s arrival here Tuesday grabbed global attention, with pundits from Sydney to Stockholm weighing in on everything from the North Korean leader’s distinctive coiffure and cigarette habit to the big question of whether he’ll give up his nuclear weapons.
Back in Pyongyang, however, it was an entirely different story — or rather, non-story. North Korean state media went silent for a second consecutive day about Mr. Kim’s trip, with nary a word on the high-stakes talks he’ll hold here Wednesday and Thursday with President Trump.
The regime’s tightly controlled propaganda machine did roll out a major splash announcing Mr. Kim’s departure by train from Pyongyang on Sunday. But the lack of coverage since then has stood in stark contrast to the mountain of headlines and speculation generated across the world over this week’s summit.
Even in Vietnam, whose communist government maintains its own tight media controls, Mr. Kim’s arrival has been covered extensively. “North Korean leader thanks Vietnam for heartwarming welcome” and “Elite solders protect North Korean leader” were the top headlines Tuesday on VNExpress, the country’s most-read news website, which carried prominent photos of Mr. Kim’s black limousine cruising through crowd-lined streets in downtown Hanoi.
The maw of motorbikes cramming nearly every intersection away from the diplomatic action carried on as normal Tuesday. But it was hard to miss the Vietnamese government’s push to capitalize on the summit as a sign of Vietnam’s own arrival on the world stage. Large blue and white signs peppering the streets of Hanoi advertise the summit and carry the message: “Hanoi The City of Peace.”
Local bars are even getting in on the action, serving up special drinks such as beer on tap renamed “Kim Jong Ale,” although authorities have made it clear the tolerance for shenanigans goes only so far. Police, for instance, reportedly detained Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump impersonators who showed up at a local TV station to do an interview on Friday. The two were released and told if they didn’t knock it off they’d be deported, according to Agence France-Presse.
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But for all the excitement, North Korea’s citizenry remains in the dark, with almost no coverage of the events unfolding around the nation’s leader in Hanoi.
The state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, last weighed in on Mr. Kim’s movements Sunday.
KCNA announced his departure from Pyongyang for Vietnam and ran a commentary warning Mr. Trump not to listen to critics and skeptics — specifically the “Democratic Party” and “U.S. intelligence agencies” — seeking to “disrupt” negotiations with North Korea.
Rodong carried a full page of articles Sunday about Mr. Kim’s departure, but steered clear of any speculation on what might occur at the meeting.
“There were not any predictions or anything like that. These were very simple articles,” said Paik Haksoon, a long-time North Korea analyst and the president of the Sejong Institute, a leading think tank in South Korea.
However, Mr. Paik, who is in Hanoi this week, stressed that even the simple coverage in North Korean media was unusual. “This is actually a very new phenomena and I think it’s a sign and a positive development,” he said Tuesday.
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“If you compare the North Korean reporting on Kim Jong-un’s departure to the lack of such reporting in the past on his father — for instance on Kim Jong-Il’s departures to foreign lands — this is a really new development,” said Mr. Paik. “This time, they immediately reported on the departure itself. In past times, everything was reported only after Kim Jong-un’s father returned home to North Korea. That’s when there would be stories about his itinerary and things like that.”
Others are more circumspect.
“The reason there is so little about this in the North Korean media is that Kim’s being very careful,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former high-level CIA official, who is also in Hanoi this week. “It’s partly because he just doesn’t know how this going to go and he wants to control the message. His people know he’s coming here to Vietnam, but they’re not going to do a lot of speculation the way we do in the States.”
“Kim will meet Trump and then come out with statement and he’s going to try and control it ex post facto with North Korean state media weighing in only afterward with an approved message of what happened at the summit, even if its not reflecting the truth,” said Mr. Hoffman.
The reticence extended Tuesday to the streets around the Melia Hotel in downtown Hanoi, where armored Vietnamese military vehicles and machine-gun carrying soldiers guarded Mr. Kim’s hotel well before his arrival. A security cordon stretching around the hotel kept several hundred mostly South Korean journalists at bay.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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