Bright lights, red city: North Korean leader Kim keeps Pyongyang lit while the rest of the country remains in darkness

North Korea's nighttime illumination has increased significantly, reflecting Kim Jong-un's prioritization of key areas for political control. [A STUDY OF KIM JONG-UN 1] 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. "Let us conserve even a single watt of electricity to the utmost and manage the nation's affairs with painstaking frugality and discipline." Those words came from North Korea leader Kim Jong-un's New Year's address on Jan. 1, 2014. At the time, the young leader, then about 30 years old, was grappling with North Korea's chronic electricity shortages. A pledge he had reportedly made before taking power — to ensure that people could "eat white rice and meat soup within three years" in 2010 — had already faded from reality. During the winter of 2014 and 2015, Pyongyang experienced one of its worst blackout crises in years. Foreign media reports said that even diplomatic residential areas suffered such low voltage that household appliances would not function, and tap water remained cold. Although impossible to independently verify, stories also circulated that officials had been instructed to use desk lamps instead of ceiling lights, while defectors testified that lights illuminating statues of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung would frequently go dark during power outages. Yet, only days after Kim Jong-un called for a nationwide campaign of austerity, North Korean state media introduced the state-run Songyong Lighting Research Institute, tasked with creating "artistic nightscapes of lights" in Pyongyang and elsewhere. The institute was originally established by his father, the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, but Kim Jong-un elevated its status and renamed it "Songyong," meaning a mystical landscape. What Kim ultimately wanted to perfect with such meticulous management was a brightly illuminated Pyongyang whose dazzling lights would never go out. Though its capital could not yet be illuminated so brilliantly, this was also the period when projects such as the construction of Mirae Scientists Street in Pyongyang accelerated, and diplomats stationed in the capital began informally referring to the city as "Pyonghattan," a portmanteau of Pyongyang and Manhattan. At the same time, however, newly built high-rise apartment towers often couldn't operate their elevators due to electricity shortages, leading residents to avoid upper floors. More than a decade later, Kim's vision now appears closer to reality. A joint research team led by professors Kim Ji-hee, an economics professor at KAIST, and Cha Mee-young, a professor at KAIST's School of Computing, in collaboration with Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, analyzed satellite data to measure nighttime illumination levels across North Korea's cities, counties and districts. Their findings suggest that North Korea's nights have changed. But behind the brighter lights lies an uncomfortable reality. In a country where most regions remain dark like a vast blac...