 | | North Korea's first lady Ri Sol-ju sports a Chanel look in this photo with her husband Kim Jong-un and the Chinese first couple, Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan. / Yonhap |
By Oh Young-jin
Was it a ruse to distract our attention from the beast with beauty?
There is no doubt that Ri Sol-ju, who accompanied her husband, North Korea's young dictator Kim Jong-un on his recent surprise visit to China, certainly turned heads.
Her smart, elegant looks distracted attention from her overweight, grumpy-looking husband who is infamous for many heinous acts: allegedly killing his elder half-brother and uncle, and purging his supposed close lieutenants.
The North Korean first lady indeed made her husband appear more human.
That obviously is helping Kim before two important events that may well determine the fate of the communist country ― the inter-Korean summit in April and one in May between North Korea and the U.S.
 | | North Korea's first lady Ri Sol-ju with her husband Kim Jong-un wave as they leave Beijing. / Yonhap |
U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to get the North's nuclear programs dismantled once and for all and declared that the summit with Kim will serve as a venue to hand over this ultimatum. Trump's threat is based on Kim's image as a butcher trying to destroy the U.S. with its nuclear-armed missiles.
With a more human image, Kim, the object of dubious credibility, may well make his implausible proposal of giving up the country's nuclear weapons less so.
In Beijing, Ri was an instant hit for her beauty and sophisticated outfits. Some Chinese netizens said she was as pretty as Song Hye-kyo, the South Korean actress very popular in China. But the South China Morning Post reported that discussions on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, about comparing Ri with Peng Liyuan, China's first lady, were censored.
The two couples had their photos taken together and comparison was inevitable. Peng and Ri were former singers but there is a big age gap ― Ri is 28 while Peng is 55.
During her hectic schedule, Ri sported at least three distinct wardrobe changes while maintaining her "outdated" Chanel look.
 | | Ri So-ju, in a white two-piece outfit, with husband Kim Jong-un, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan. / Yonhap |
At the Chinese Academy of Sciences, she wore a white jacket and an apple-green dress with a ribbon brooch and carried a nude leather clutch. In the welcoming ceremony, she had on a camel cropped jacket with a matching midi skirt and court shoes.
Rarely had Kim's predecessors ― his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather and North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung ― traveled with their wives. Even if they did, their spouses would have been kept out of sight. Maybe Kim's schooling in Switzerland helped him have fewer reservations about accompanying his wife like other countries' heads of state.
Ri's public appearances are comparable with Kim's younger sister Kim Yo-jong, who visited as Pyongyang's special envoy during the PyeongChang Winter Games. Kim delivered her brother's summit invitation to President Moon Jae-in. Seoul sent envoys to Pyongyang to plan the summits ― one with the South and the other with the U.S.
Kim, 30, is an alternative member of North Korea's powerful Politburo and director of the Workers' Party's department of propaganda and agitation.
On her visit to the South, she wore light makeup and stuck to the official dress code of a black two-piece. But she also captured the imagination of the outside world for her vivacious laughter and straightforward manner.
She was also seen as softening the North's bellicose image, helping the South Korean public accept a drastic turn of events for reconciliation with the North.
But it remains to be seen whether the North's charm offensive just camouflages a murderous ambition to buy time from international sanctions and move ahead with its programs to complete the development of weapons of mass destruction.
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