25 Questions Moon May Have Asked Kim at the DMZ

South Korea’s Moon Jae-In and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-Un, met at Panmunjeom on April 27, 2018. Amid considerable theatrics, they shook hands, hugged, ate a super-fancy dinner and shared toasts. Early in the summit, they moved apart from their wives and various assistants for a one-to-one chat that lasted half an hour. To what extent they were faking the bonhomie, I do not know. But most observers seem to regard the confab with optimism—seasoned with plenty of caution. We have, after all, been down this road before.

If Moon did not ask Kim the following questions, he should have:

• I read that nearly 35,000 statues of your grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, are spread over the North Korean landscape. And people passing the one in Pyongyang (20 meters tall) are supposed to genuflect. If I come see you there in a few months, will I have to bow, too?
• You recently resurrected the “pleasure squad” employed by your grandfather and father, Kim Jong-Il. The country’s loveliest young females are thus put at your disposal. What’s that like?
• When you were a student at the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli boarding school in Koeniz, Switzerland in 1996 and 1997, did you learn anything about democracy or human rights?
• What’s with that haircut?
• Most of your people are woefully underfed, but you spend $30 million a year on foreign liquors for yourself and your fellow elites. Wouldn’t home-made booze suffice?
• Your father, as the world knows, was an amazing golfer—shooting a 34 (38 under par!) with 11 holes-in-one on his very first try at the sport. Are you good at it, too?
• I was elected through a democratic process, chosen as president by the people from among many candidates. Tell me, Jong-Un, by what means did you become the head of state up north? You say your father gave you the job, and his father gave him the job?
• Now about the gulag. It holds almost 200,000 people, some of whose “crimes” consist of nothing more than opposing the Kim regime or trying to come to South Korea. The conditions are allegedly worse than in the Nazi prison camps during World War II. Some of your critics, of which there are many, say you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. What’s your view, my dear sir?
• No offense, but you are a bit on the chubby side. You obviously don’t miss many meals. I assume you also ate well during the North Korean famine of the 1990s. It can be attributed directly to the bone-headed decisions made by your government. Have you ever shed a tear for any of the 2 million or so people who died of starvation or hunger-related diseases?
• Do you still teach the falsehood that South Korea invaded North Korea on June 25, 1950?
• Intellectual property is a dependable way of gauging a country’s economic, educational and governmental strength. We filed 238,135 patent applications and 347,354 trademark applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 2015, but you guys had just six of each. How do you explain this?
• Jong-Un, you seem to be a somewhat reasonable young man. Are you aware that your grandfather was not really the founder of your country since the Russkies put him in place in 1945 and gave him bounteous support?
• Did you feel any remorse about putting a hit on your half-brother, Kim Jong-Nam, at the Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017?
• You North Koreans talk about Juche—self-reliance. But I fail to see how self-reliant you are since you constantly beg for food, oil and technology from us, the USA, China, Russia and European countries. Please explain this apparent contradiction.
• When Kim Dae-Jung went to Pyongyang in 2000, he took with him a $500 million check courtesy of Hyundai and handed it to your father. I trust those funds were spent wisely. Were they?
• I am told that the North Korean famine is still going on and that many of your people are so hungry they are eating the bark off of trees. Please confirm or deny.
• I thought your bromance with retired American basketball player Dennis Rodman was bizarre and uncouth, to say the least. What did your generals—the ones with medals hanging down past their belly buttons—say about it?
• You have conducted several purges (one of which included your uncle, Jang Song-Thaek) since taking power in 2011. We don’t have purges in South Korea. We engage in passionate political arguments, sure, but there are no purges. Why don’t you give it a try?
• The cult of personality of your grandfather, father and now you has deceived many of your countrymen. Do they even know about Korean historical figures like Dangun, King Sejong or Yi Sun-Shin?
• Jong-Un, do you give on-the-spot guidance as your two predecessors did?
• How many counterfeit $100 bills have you guys crafted in “Room 39” in Pyongyang?
• At one point in the Korean War, our American allies had your granddaddy on the run and he was frantically asking the Chinese for permission to set up a government-in-exile over there. Do they teach that in North Korean schools?
• What your security people did to the American student Otto Warmbier was a bit extreme, don’t you think? You essentially killed him for what—stealing a political poster?
• One more nuclear test at the Punggye-ri site, and the whole mountain will blow up and spread deadly radiation far and wide. You know that, don’t you?
• Jong-Un, a revolution north of the 38th parallel is coming. What will you do then?