CHOE SANG-HUN：核弹小子金正恩

 　　SEOUL, South Korea — In China, the man threatening to fire missiles at the United States is often derided as a chubby brat. In the United States, a senator recently referred to him as “this crazy fat kid.” President Trump once called him “a total nut job.” But the target of all that scorn, Kim Jong-un, the 33-year-old leader of North Korea, has long been underestimated.

　　韩国首尔。在中国，这个扬言要把导弹射到美国的男人常被嘲笑成一个胖小子。在美国，最近一位参议员称他为“这个疯狂的肥孩子”。总统特朗普曾叫他“彻底的疯货”。可顶着各式嘲骂，33岁的朝鲜领导人金正恩一直被低估了。

　　Mr. Kim was the youngest of three sons yet leapfrogged his brothers to succeed his father, Kim Jong-il. Many analysts dismissed him as an inexperienced figurehead when he took power at 27; some predicted he would never last. But almost six years later, there is little doubt he is firmly in control.

　　金正恩是三兄弟中最年轻的一个，却跳过两个哥哥继承了父亲金正日的大统。他27岁执政时，许多分析人士贬低他是个缺少经验的傀儡;有人预计他干不长久。可将近六年之后，毫无疑问，他大权在握。

　　Now, against long odds, Mr. Kim is on the verge of making his isolated, impoverished nation one of very few in the world that can hit the United States with a nuclear missile — defying not only the Trump administration but also international sanctions and North Korea’s traditional allies in Beijing.

　　如今，突破万难，金先生即将使他孤立、贫困的国家成为世上为数不多有能力用核导弹打击美国的国家之一，他不仅公然反抗特朗普政府，还不顾国际制裁和朝鲜在北京的传统盟友。

　　Some have urged President Trump to open negotiations with him. But it is unclear whether Mr. Kim is interested in talking, or what if anything he might demand in exchange for freezing or abandoning his nuclear program. He has made building a nuclear arsenal a top priority, arguing that it is the only way the North can guarantee its security and develop its economy.

　　有人敦促特朗普总统与他展开谈判。但金先生对对话是否有兴趣，或者他会提出什么条件换取冻结或放弃核计划，尚不得而知。他把建立核武库视作头等大事，认为这是朝鲜确保安全和发展经济的唯一途径。

　　His ultimate motives, like many details of his life, are uncertain. Since taking power, Mr. Kim has yet to travel abroad or host a visit from another state leader. Only a few people outside North Korea have been allowed to meet with him — the former basketball star Dennis Rodman, a Japanese sushi chef, the vice presidents of Cuba and China. What little is known of Mr. Kim’s record suggests ruthlessness — and some ideological flexibility.

　　他的终极目标，如同他多数生活细节一样难以捉摸。掌权以来，金先生还未走出国门，也未接访过一位外国领导人。朝鲜之外只有为数不多的人获准会见，其中包括篮球明星丹尼斯·罗德曼、一位日本寿司厨师、古巴和中国的副手。对金先生所知的只鳞片爪，表明他很残酷，但意识形态相对灵活。

　　South Korean intelligence officials say Mr. Kim has executed scores of senior officials, including his own uncle, a wily power broker who had been seen as his mentor. He is also assumed to have ordered the assassination of his half brother, who was poisoned by VX nerve agent at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in February.

　　韩国情报官员称金先生处决了数十名高官，其中包括自己的姑父、诡计多端的权力掮客【张成泽】，张曾被视作他的导师。他还被认为下令刺杀自己同父异母的兄弟，后者2月在马来西亚吉隆坡国际机场被VX神经毒剂毒死。

　　Yet Mr. Kim is also credited with loosening state controls on the economy and engineering modest growth, and regaining some of the public confidence that the dynastic regime enjoyed under his grandfather and lost under his father, whose rule is remembered for a devastating famine.

　　但金先生放松了国家对经济的管制，促进经济温和增长，重拾部分公众信任，朝鲜王朝在他祖父治下广受拥戴，父亲执政时却因毁灭性的饥荒失却民心。

　　“Smart, pragmatic, decisive,” Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, said of Mr. Kim. “But also capricious, moody and ready to kill easily.”

　　“精明、实用、果断，”首尔国民大学朝鲜专家安德雷·兰科夫说。“但他喜怒无常，嗜杀。”

　　One subject on which Mr. Kim has not wavered is the nuclear program. His father held out the possibility of scrapping the program in return for economic aid and security guarantees and even struck a deal with the Clinton administration, though the North later violated it. But Mr. Kim has taken a more aggressive approach.

　　金先生坚定不移的是核计划。他的父亲曾提出取缔该计划以换取经济和安全保障，甚至一度和克林顿政府达成协议，尽管朝鲜后来违反了协议。金先生则更加凌厉。

　　Three of North Korea’s five nuclear tests have come under his watch, and there are signs that the country is preparing for another one. North Korea has also conducted about 80 missile tests under Mr. Kim, more than twice as many as under his father and grandfather combined.

　　朝鲜的五次核试验中，他观看了其中三次，有迹象表明，该国还准备进行一次。在金先生治下，朝鲜进行了约80次导弹试射，比父亲和祖父治下的总数量多一倍。

　　The nation crossed a major threshold with the last two missile tests, on July 4 and July 28, which analysts said demonstrated intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting Alaska and, in the most recent test, the mainland United States.

　　最近两次导弹试射，7月4日和7月28日跨过了重要门槛。分析人士表示，其洲际弹道导弹可打击阿拉斯加，最后一次试射甚至可以打击美国本土。

　　North Korean state media showed Mr. Kim present at both tests, wearing a suit with a Mao-style collar, surrounded by soldiers and smiling broadly.

　　朝鲜国家媒体显示金先生两次试射都在场，他身着毛式礼服，满面笑容，被士兵拥簇着。

　　A Mysterious Heir

　　Mr. Kim first appeared in North Korean state media in September 2010, little more than a year before he succeeded his father as supreme leader. The reports said that he had been appointed a four-star general and that the ruling Workers’ Party had elected him vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. Until then, it was not clear whether he would succeed his father. The outside world had never even seen a photograph of him as an adult.

　　金先生2010年9月首次在朝鲜国家媒体露面，距离继承父亲成为最高领导人只有一年多。报道称他被任命为四星上将，执政的劳动党已选举他为中央军事委员会副主席。即便当时，他是否会继位仍不清晰。外界从未见过他成年以后的照片。

　　The elder Mr. Kim, who ruled North Korea from 1994 until his death at the end of 2011, had three wives and at least six children. His first wife delivered a son in 1971 but fell out of favor and died in exile in Moscow. His second wife gave birth to two daughters but no son. His third wife, Ko Yong-hui, a Japanese-born Korean singer and dancer, had two sons and a daughter.

　　老金1994年统治朝鲜直到2011年末逝世，共有三个妻子和至少六个子女。第一任妻子1971年生下一个儿子，妻子失宠后客死在莫斯科。第二个妻子生了两个女儿，没有儿子。第三任妻子是出生在日本的朝鲜歌手和舞者高英姬，生了两个儿子和一个女儿。

　　Despite his mother’s departure, the eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, was widely considered the heir apparent until 2001, when he was caught attempting to visit Tokyo Disneyland on a false passport. He later appeared to go into exile, living in Macau and surfacing occasionally with mild criticism of the regime, before his assassination in Malaysia in February.

　　尽管父亲离世，长子金正南在2001年前一直被认为是储君，当年他试图持假护照游览东京迪士尼被捉，后来貌似开始流亡，他居住在澳门，偶尔现身对朝鲜政体进行温和的批评，直到今年2月在马来西亚被刺杀。

　　Kim Jong-il’s second son, Kim Jong-chol, was seen at an Eric Clapton concert in London in 2015, but little else is known about him and it is unclear why he was passed over for succession. One of the only clues comes from Kenji Fujimoto, the Kim family’s former sushi chef, who wrote in a memoir published in 2003 after he escaped North Korea in 2001 that the elder Mr. Kim considered the child too “effeminate.”

　　金正日的次子金正哲，2015年被人看到在伦敦观看埃里克·克拉普顿的音乐会，其他信息则一无所知，也不清楚为何他被排除继承权。唯一的线索来自金家曾经的寿司厨师藤本健二，他2001年逃离朝鲜，在2003年出版的回忆录中写道，老金认为这个孩子太过“柔弱”了。

　　But Kim Jong-il adored his third son, Kim Jong-un, and saw his own domineering attitude and other leadership qualities in the boy at an early age, according to Mr. Fujimoto, who was one of the few to predict Kim Jong-un’s rise to power.

　　可藤本健二说，金正日喜欢三子金正恩，认为这个男孩小时候就表现出自己的霸气和其他领导素养。藤本健二是为数不多的几个认为金正恩将掌权的人。

　　After a basketball game, for example, Kim Jong-chol would leave the court immediately but Kim Jong-un would linger and gather his teammates for postgame analysis, the chef wrote. Mr. Fujimoto also recalled how Kim Jong-un sometimes hurled board-game pieces at his brother when he was losing.

　　这位厨师举例说，打完篮球赛后，金正哲立即离场，金正恩则会留下来，召集队友做赛后分析。藤本健二还回忆金正恩输了棋，有时会把棋盘扔向他的哥哥。

　　On his eighth birthday, Kim Jong-un was given a general’s uniform as a gift, and from then on, generals paid their respects to him by bowing before him, according to his aunt, Ko Yong-suk, who defected to the United States in 1998.

　　八岁生日时，金正恩的礼物是一套将军服，据她的姑姑、1998年叛逃美国的高英淑说，打那以后，将军们都会向他鞠躬致敬。

　　“He learned how power works from early age,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies in Dongguk University in Seoul.

　　“他小时候就明白权力的用处了，”位于首尔的东国大学朝鲜研究教授高有焕说。

　　North Korean state media have swaddled Mr. Kim’s childhood with mythmaking, portraying him as an excellent marksman and a “genius among geniuses” who loved to drive fast cars. At age 16, he is said to have written a research paper analyzing his grandfather’s leadership during the Korean War.

　　朝鲜国家媒体用神话包装了金先生的童年，将他塑造成神枪手，“天才中的天才”，喜欢开快车。16岁时，据说他撰写了一篇研究论文，分析祖父在朝鲜战争中的领导能力。

　　From 1996 until at least 2000, Mr. Kim is believed to have studied in public schools in Switzerland disguised as the son of a North Korean diplomat. The classes were taught in German, and Mr. Kim struggled with the language. A video recorded at the time shows him uncomfortably tapping a tambourine in a music class.

　　据信从1996年开始，至少到2000年，金先生一直在瑞士的私立寄宿学校读书，以朝鲜外交官的儿子作掩护。课程用德语教学，金语言不太灵光。当时的视频显示，他在一堂音乐课上不大自在地敲着铃鼓。

　　“We weren’t the dimmest kids in class but neither were we the cleverest,” a classmate, Joao Micaelo, told a British tabloid in 2011. Mr. Micaelo and others have said Mr. Kim was a quiet teenager who loved James Bond films and playing basketball. But he stood out because he had expensive sneakers and gadgets, including a Sony PlayStation, and enjoyed the services of a cook, a driver and a private tutor.

　　“我们不是班上最差劲的孩子，但也不是最聪明的，”同学若昂·米开罗2011年对一家英国小报说。米开罗和其他人说金先生是个安静的少年，喜欢看詹姆斯·邦德电影，打篮球。但他引人注目，因为他的运动鞋和装备很昂贵，还有一台索尼游戏机，有自己的厨师、司机和私教。

　　One classmate, Marco Imhof, recalled how he once scolded a servant for serving cold spaghetti. “I was surprised because it was not how he normally was,” Mr. Imhof said in an interview published in 2010.

　　同学马克·伊姆霍夫回忆，他一次曾因意大利面凉了斥责仆人。“我很吃惊，他平时不是那样的人，”伊姆霍夫先生在2010年播发的访谈中说。

　　There is evidence that Mr. Kim’s time as a youth in Europe, and perhaps other countries, left an impression. In his memoir, Mr. Fujimoto recalled conversations with Mr. Kim as a teenager in which the future leader expressed frustration with power shortages at home and marveled at overseas department stores.

　　有证据显示年轻的金先生在欧洲可能还有其他国家的日子对他产生了影响。藤本健二回忆和少年时代的金先生谈话，这位未来的领导人对国内电力不足感到懊丧，他对海外的百货商场感到惊奇。

　　“Japan was defeated by America, but they’ve greatly reconstructed the country. The shops were full of goods. What about our country?” Mr. Fujimoto quoted the young Mr. Kim as saying. Later in the conversation, Mr. Kim suggested that North Korea should learn from China’s market-oriented economic policies, Mr. Fujimoto wrote. Such accounts have left some analysts hopeful.

　　“日本被美国打败了，但他们却彻底重建。商店里琳琅满目。我们的国家呢?”藤本健二引用年轻的金先生说。后来的谈话中，金先生认为朝鲜应该学习中国的市场化经济政策，藤本健二写道。这些叙述让某些分析人士充满希望。

　　“When the time comes, Kim Jong-un is expected to adopt policies that will ease his country’s isolation and embrace good things from the West,” Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute, a think tank outside Seoul, said in a paper on Mr. Kim’s leadership published in February.

　　“时机成熟时，金正恩将采取政策，改观国家的孤立，接纳西方的好东西，”韩国智库世宗研究所朝鲜专家白鹤淳2月发表论文说。

　　‘Reign of Terror’

　　But first came what South Korean officials have called a “reign of terror.”

　　可首先到来的是韩国官员所谓的“恐怖统治”。

　　After returning to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, Mr. Kim graduated from the Kim Il-sung Military University in 2006 and was put on a fast track into the nation’s military leadership. Recent state propaganda footage has shown him inspecting military units in the years after graduation. In one scene, he is seen welcoming his father home from an overseas trip and shaking hands with him as an equal.

　　回到朝鲜首都平壤后，金先生就读于金日成综合军事大学，2006年毕业并直接进入国家的军队领导层。最近发布的国家宣传视频显示，他毕业后数年间就检阅了部队。一个画面中，他欢迎父亲海外访问归来，同父亲握手，地位平等。

　　After his father’s death, though, Mr. Kim’s hold on power is believed to have been precarious. He had completed his university education only five years earlier and was surrounded by experienced military leaders and party officials. Outside North Korea, many assumed he was the supreme leader in name only, with real power in the hands of Jang Song-thaek, his uncle and regent.

　　可据信父亲去世后，金先生对权力的掌控一直岌岌可危。他大学毕业刚五年，周围都是经验丰富的军队领导人和党内官员。朝鲜以外，许多人认为他不过是名义上的最高领导人，实权握在姑父及摄政者张成泽手中。

　　Mr. Jang appeared to help his nephew carry out a systematic purge, replacing many of the nation’s most powerful generals and bureaucrats, according to South Korean intelligence officials. But two years into his rule, Mr. Kim moved against his uncle, too, arranging for him to be arrested by uniformed officers during a Politburo meeting while hundreds of party delegates watched. Mr. Jang was executed on charges that included clapping “halfheartedly” when Mr. Kim entered the room and plotting to overthrow him.

　　韩国情报官员称，张成泽表面看来帮助侄子进行系统性清洗，更换了国内许多最有实力的将军和官僚。但执政两年后，金先生把矛头指向了他的姑父，在一次政治局会议上，在数百名党代表眼前，金先生安排军人逮捕了姑父。张成泽被处决，罪行包括金先生进屋时张成泽鼓掌“不诚心”，还有策划颠覆自己。

　　The purge continued with a new focus on rooting out those loyal to Mr. Jang. Many were executed with antiaircraft machine guns after members of the ruling elite were brought in by trucks to be witnesses, South Korean intelligence officials said. Cheong Seong-chang, an expert on the Kim family at the Sejong Institute, said high-level North Korean defectors told him that Mr. Jang had as many as 20 children and that Mr. Kim had them all killed.

　　清洗的新重心是铲除忠诚于张成泽的人。韩国情报官员称，许多人被用高射机枪处决，用卡车把高层精英拉来观看处决。世宗研究所金家专家郑相昌说，朝鲜高层叛逃者告诉他，张成泽有20个孩子，金先生把他们全杀了。

　　In total, since taking power, Mr. Kim is believed to have executed more than 140 senior officials. “He moved quickly and ruthlessly,” said Daniel A. Pinkston, a Seoul-based professor of international relations at Troy University. “I think most people did not expect a man so young to be so proficient at managing his dictatorship.”

　　据信，掌权以来，金先生共处决了超过140名高级官员。“他动作又快又狠，”特洛伊大学驻首尔国际关系教授丹尼尔·平克斯顿说。“我认为大多数人没想到这么年轻的一个人，把独裁统治玩得这么娴熟。”

　　Analysts say Mr. Kim has restored the authority of the Workers’ Party apparatus and uses it as his main vehicle for governing, in contrast with his father, who put the military first, rarely convened formal party meetings and made decisions in secretive, late-night sessions of his cronies. That, some say, has added a degree of institutional predictability to his rule.

　　分析人士称，金先生恢复了劳动党机构的权威，并用它作为主要的统治工具，这不像他的父亲，主张军队第一，很少召开正式党内会议，总是与亲信在深夜里秘密开会并做出决策。有人说，这让他的统治多了几分机制化，有迹可循。

　　But Mr. Kim has not abandoned his father’s use of hagiography in the state news media, which portrays him as all-powerful, with even the party’s second-ranking official, Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, fawning over him in recent photos.

　　但金先生并未放弃父亲的做法，在国家媒体上将自己塑造成圣人，媒体认为他全知全能，最近公布的照片中，甚至国家的二把手副元帅黄炳誓都一直奉承他。

　　Mr. Rodman, the former professional basketball player, has described going to a stadium packed with 150,000 people during the 2013 visit to Pyongyang where he was allowed to meet Mr. Kim. “People were standing for a half-hour, just clapping,” he told an audience at West Point in March. “They were crying for this man.”

　　前职业篮球运动员罗德曼先生2013年访问朝鲜并获准会见金先生，他形容当时15万人挤在体育场中。“人们站了半个小时，不停鼓掌，”他3月在西点军校演讲时说。“他们为那个男人哭出声来。”

　　In a departure from his father’s style, though, Mr. Kim has sought to cultivate a folksy, man-of-the-people image. He is shown throwing his arms around soldiers, visiting workers at home and cradling babies in hospital nurseries. He is also sometimes accompanied to events by his fashionably dressed wife, Ri Sol-ju, a break from the secrecy that shrouded his father’s marriages.

　　可与他父亲的风格不同，金先生试图打造一种和蔼、亲民的形象。他张开双臂同士兵拥抱，走到工人家中去，在医院育儿室抱婴儿。有时他还有打扮入时的妻子李雪主相伴，这与父亲有所不同，父亲的婚姻密不透风。

　　Mr. Rodman was even allowed to hold Mr. Kim’s baby daughter, the first confirmation for much of the world that he had a child. (South Korean officials believe that Ms. Ri had a second child last year, a son.)

　　甚至罗德曼先生还获准抱着金先生的小女儿，第一次向世人确定，他有孩子了。(韩国官员认为李女士去年又生了一个儿子。)

　　Analysts say Mr. Kim seems to be trying to tap into nostalgia for his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, who ruled North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994 and is still revered as a godlike figure. Kim Jong-un appears to have adopted his grandfather’s slow gait, beaming smile, closely cropped hair and even his way of holding a cigarette. Some suggest Mr. Kim even gained weight on purpose to mirror his grandfather’s stocky build.

　　分析人士表示，金先生看样子要学习祖父金日成，金日成1948年建国后统治朝鲜，一直到1994年，至今仍被尊为神一般的人物。金正恩看起来同他祖父一样，步态缓慢，满面春风，留小平头，甚至拿烟的方式都差不多。有人说金先生甚至有意增加体重，以模仿祖父敦实的身材。

　　“When North Koreans first saw him, we thought Kim Il-sung was reincarnated,” said Baek Yu-min, a North Korean defector.

　　“朝鲜人第一次看到他，我们以为金日成重生了，”一名朝鲜叛逃者说。

　　‘Parallel Advance’

　　During much of Kim Il-sung’s rule, North Korea’s economy was bigger than South Korea’s. But today, per capita income in the North is less than 5 percent what it is in the South. That chasm poses perhaps the greatest threat to Kim Jong-un’s political legitimacy.

　　金日成统治大部分时间，朝鲜的经济规模都比韩国大。可今天，朝鲜人均收入不足韩国的5%。这种差距可能对金正恩的政权合法性造成最严峻的威胁。

　　Mr. Kim’s answer has been to pursue a policy of “byungjin,” or parallel advance, which calls for the simultaneous pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development. Only with a nuclear deterrent, Mr. Kim contends, will the North be secure enough to focus on growth.

　　金先生的答案是推行“并行路线”，核武器和经济发展同时推动。金先生认为，只有有了核威慑，朝鲜才能获得安全，一心谋发展。

　　Mr. Kim has improved access to food and goods by allowing more market activities. He has also launched a building boom in Pyongyang, where the most loyal citizens are allowed to live. Despite decades of sanctions and international isolation, the economy has lately shown surprising signs of life.

　　金先生放松了市场管制，让人们可以买到更多食品和商品。他在平壤大搞建设，而只有忠诚的人才允许居住在这里。尽管经过数十年的制裁和国际孤立，最近经济倒显得生气勃勃，实在令人惊奇。

　　But conditions remain dismal outside the showcase capital, and further growth may require an end to the sanctions that limit the North’s ability to trade with the world. And that would mean giving up the nuclear program.

　　可在作为样板的首都之外，情况依旧很糟糕，持续增长需要结束制裁，制裁限制了朝鲜与世界通商的能力，那就意味着要放弃核计划。

　　Mr. Kim, however, appears to see the problem differently. More than 30,000 North Koreans have fled since the famine of the 1990s, and defectors say he must keep the country isolated because he is afraid of it being swallowed by the South.

　　然而，金先生看问题的方式不同。九十年代的饥荒发生以来，超过3万名朝鲜人逃跑，叛逃者说他必须闭关锁国，因为他害怕被韩国吞并。

　　That is where the nuclear arsenal comes in. His government has argued that it needs nuclear arms to protect itself from being toppled like others who gave up weapons of mass destruction; the state news media has pointed to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein.

　　这就是建设核武库的原因。政府声言需要核武器保证不被颠覆，那些放弃大规模杀伤性武器的政权都完蛋了，国家新闻媒体提到卡扎菲上校和萨达姆·侯赛因。

　　But the North has also said it hopes to use nuclear arms to force the world, including the United States, to accept it as a full member of the international community on its terms — just as Washington eventually recognized China after it became a nuclear power.

　　但朝鲜也表示，希望核武器能迫使世界，包括美国在内，接受其在国际社会中的完全地位，正如中国拥有核能力后就获得了美国政府的承认。

　　“Kim Jong-un is here to rule for decades, playing the long game,” said Mr. Koh, the Dongguk University professor. “Over time, he believes that the world will have no option but to accept his country as a nuclear power.”

　　“金正恩要统治几十年，那是一场拉力赛，”东国大学教授高有焕说。“他认为时间一长，世界就没别的办法，只能承认朝鲜是一个核国家。”

　　Analysts say it may be difficult for Mr. Kim to back down in the face of foreign pressure, especially on the nuclear issue, given how closely he is associated with the program.

　　分析人士认为，很难让金先生在外国压力下屈服，尤其在核问题上，他和核计划息息相关。

　　The state news media has highlighted what it claims is his military daring, especially in dealing with the United States. One recent propaganda film reported that Mr. Kim persuaded his father to approve the test firing of a long-range rocket in 2009, when he would have been about 25.

　　国家新闻媒体高调报道他的军事勇气，尤其在对付美国方面。最近发布的一条宣传影片称，金先生劝说父亲2009年批准试射一枚远程火箭，当时他大概25岁。

　　If the Americans intervened, he was said to have argued, the North should go to war.

　　据称他曾扬言，如果美国人干预，朝鲜准备打上一仗。

 　　SEOUL, South Korea — In China, the man threatening to fire missiles at the United States is often derided as a chubby brat. In the United States, a senator recently referred to him as “this crazy fat kid.” President Trump once called him “a total nut job.” But the target of all that scorn, Kim Jong-un, the 33-year-old leader of North Korea, has long been underestimated.

　　韩国首尔。在中国，这个扬言要把导弹射到美国的男人常被嘲笑成一个胖小子。在美国，最近一位参议员称他为“这个疯狂的肥孩子”。总统特朗普曾叫他“彻底的疯货”。可顶着各式嘲骂，33岁的朝鲜领导人金正恩一直被低估了。

　　Mr. Kim was the youngest of three sons yet leapfrogged his brothers to succeed his father, Kim Jong-il. Many analysts dismissed him as an inexperienced figurehead when he took power at 27; some predicted he would never last. But almost six years later, there is little doubt he is firmly in control.

　　金正恩是三兄弟中最年轻的一个，却跳过两个哥哥继承了父亲金正日的大统。他27岁执政时，许多分析人士贬低他是个缺少经验的傀儡;有人预计他干不长久。可将近六年之后，毫无疑问，他大权在握。

　　Now, against long odds, Mr. Kim is on the verge of making his isolated, impoverished nation one of very few in the world that can hit the United States with a nuclear missile — defying not only the Trump administration but also international sanctions and North Korea’s traditional allies in Beijing.

　　如今，突破万难，金先生即将使他孤立、贫困的国家成为世上为数不多有能力用核导弹打击美国的国家之一，他不仅公然反抗特朗普政府，还不顾国际制裁和朝鲜在北京的传统盟友。

　　Some have urged President Trump to open negotiations with him. But it is unclear whether Mr. Kim is interested in talking, or what if anything he might demand in exchange for freezing or abandoning his nuclear program. He has made building a nuclear arsenal a top priority, arguing that it is the only way the North can guarantee its security and develop its economy.

　　有人敦促特朗普总统与他展开谈判。但金先生对对话是否有兴趣，或者他会提出什么条件换取冻结或放弃核计划，尚不得而知。他把建立核武库视作头等大事，认为这是朝鲜确保安全和发展经济的唯一途径。

　　His ultimate motives, like many details of his life, are uncertain. Since taking power, Mr. Kim has yet to travel abroad or host a visit from another state leader. Only a few people outside North Korea have been allowed to meet with him — the former basketball star Dennis Rodman, a Japanese sushi chef, the vice presidents of Cuba and China. What little is known of Mr. Kim’s record suggests ruthlessness — and some ideological flexibility.

　　他的终极目标，如同他多数生活细节一样难以捉摸。掌权以来，金先生还未走出国门，也未接访过一位外国领导人。朝鲜之外只有为数不多的人获准会见，其中包括篮球明星丹尼斯·罗德曼、一位日本寿司厨师、古巴和中国的副手。对金先生所知的只鳞片爪，表明他很残酷，但意识形态相对灵活。

　　South Korean intelligence officials say Mr. Kim has executed scores of senior officials, including his own uncle, a wily power broker who had been seen as his mentor. He is also assumed to have ordered the assassination of his half brother, who was poisoned by VX nerve agent at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in February.

　　韩国情报官员称金先生处决了数十名高官，其中包括自己的姑父、诡计多端的权力掮客【张成泽】，张曾被视作他的导师。他还被认为下令刺杀自己同父异母的兄弟，后者2月在马来西亚吉隆坡国际机场被VX神经毒剂毒死。

　　Yet Mr. Kim is also credited with loosening state controls on the economy and engineering modest growth, and regaining some of the public confidence that the dynastic regime enjoyed under his grandfather and lost under his father, whose rule is remembered for a devastating famine.

　　但金先生放松了国家对经济的管制，促进经济温和增长，重拾部分公众信任，朝鲜王朝在他祖父治下广受拥戴，父亲执政时却因毁灭性的饥荒失却民心。

　　“Smart, pragmatic, decisive,” Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, said of Mr. Kim. “But also capricious, moody and ready to kill easily.”

　　“精明、实用、果断，”首尔国民大学朝鲜专家安德雷·兰科夫说。“但他喜怒无常，嗜杀。”

　　One subject on which Mr. Kim has not wavered is the nuclear program. His father held out the possibility of scrapping the program in return for economic aid and security guarantees and even struck a deal with the Clinton administration, though the North later violated it. But Mr. Kim has taken a more aggressive approach.

　　金先生坚定不移的是核计划。他的父亲曾提出取缔该计划以换取经济和安全保障，甚至一度和克林顿政府达成协议，尽管朝鲜后来违反了协议。金先生则更加凌厉。

　　Three of North Korea’s five nuclear tests have come under his watch, and there are signs that the country is preparing for another one. North Korea has also conducted about 80 missile tests under Mr. Kim, more than twice as many as under his father and grandfather combined.

　　朝鲜的五次核试验中，他观看了其中三次，有迹象表明，该国还准备进行一次。在金先生治下，朝鲜进行了约80次导弹试射，比父亲和祖父治下的总数量多一倍。

　　The nation crossed a major threshold with the last two missile tests, on July 4 and July 28, which analysts said demonstrated intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting Alaska and, in the most recent test, the mainland United States.

　　最近两次导弹试射，7月4日和7月28日跨过了重要门槛。分析人士表示，其洲际弹道导弹可打击阿拉斯加，最后一次试射甚至可以打击美国本土。

　　North Korean state media showed Mr. Kim present at both tests, wearing a suit with a Mao-style collar, surrounded by soldiers and smiling broadly.

　　朝鲜国家媒体显示金先生两次试射都在场，他身着毛式礼服，满面笑容，被士兵拥簇着。

　　A Mysterious Heir

　　Mr. Kim first appeared in North Korean state media in September 2010, little more than a year before he succeeded his father as supreme leader. The reports said that he had been appointed a four-star general and that the ruling Workers’ Party had elected him vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. Until then, it was not clear whether he would succeed his father. The outside world had never even seen a photograph of him as an adult.

　　金先生2010年9月首次在朝鲜国家媒体露面，距离继承父亲成为最高领导人只有一年多。报道称他被任命为四星上将，执政的劳动党已选举他为中央军事委员会副主席。即便当时，他是否会继位仍不清晰。外界从未见过他成年以后的照片。

　　The elder Mr. Kim, who ruled North Korea from 1994 until his death at the end of 2011, had three wives and at least six children. His first wife delivered a son in 1971 but fell out of favor and died in exile in Moscow. His second wife gave birth to two daughters but no son. His third wife, Ko Yong-hui, a Japanese-born Korean singer and dancer, had two sons and a daughter.

　　老金1994年统治朝鲜直到2011年末逝世，共有三个妻子和至少六个子女。第一任妻子1971年生下一个儿子，妻子失宠后客死在莫斯科。第二个妻子生了两个女儿，没有儿子。第三任妻子是出生在日本的朝鲜歌手和舞者高英姬，生了两个儿子和一个女儿。

　　Despite his mother’s departure, the eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, was widely considered the heir apparent until 2001, when he was caught attempting to visit Tokyo Disneyland on a false passport. He later appeared to go into exile, living in Macau and surfacing occasionally with mild criticism of the regime, before his assassination in Malaysia in February.

　　尽管父亲离世，长子金正南在2001年前一直被认为是储君，当年他试图持假护照游览东京迪士尼被捉，后来貌似开始流亡，他居住在澳门，偶尔现身对朝鲜政体进行温和的批评，直到今年2月在马来西亚被刺杀。

　　Kim Jong-il’s second son, Kim Jong-chol, was seen at an Eric Clapton concert in London in 2015, but little else is known about him and it is unclear why he was passed over for succession. One of the only clues comes from Kenji Fujimoto, the Kim family’s former sushi chef, who wrote in a memoir published in 2003 after he escaped North Korea in 2001 that the elder Mr. Kim considered the child too “effeminate.”

　　金正日的次子金正哲，2015年被人看到在伦敦观看埃里克·克拉普顿的音乐会，其他信息则一无所知，也不清楚为何他被排除继承权。唯一的线索来自金家曾经的寿司厨师藤本健二，他2001年逃离朝鲜，在2003年出版的回忆录中写道，老金认为这个孩子太过“柔弱”了。

　　But Kim Jong-il adored his third son, Kim Jong-un, and saw his own domineering attitude and other leadership qualities in the boy at an early age, according to Mr. Fujimoto, who was one of the few to predict Kim Jong-un’s rise to power.

　　可藤本健二说，金正日喜欢三子金正恩，认为这个男孩小时候就表现出自己的霸气和其他领导素养。藤本健二是为数不多的几个认为金正恩将掌权的人。

　　After a basketball game, for example, Kim Jong-chol would leave the court immediately but Kim Jong-un would linger and gather his teammates for postgame analysis, the chef wrote. Mr. Fujimoto also recalled how Kim Jong-un sometimes hurled board-game pieces at his brother when he was losing.

　　这位厨师举例说，打完篮球赛后，金正哲立即离场，金正恩则会留下来，召集队友做赛后分析。藤本健二还回忆金正恩输了棋，有时会把棋盘扔向他的哥哥。

　　On his eighth birthday, Kim Jong-un was given a general’s uniform as a gift, and from then on, generals paid their respects to him by bowing before him, according to his aunt, Ko Yong-suk, who defected to the United States in 1998.

　　八岁生日时，金正恩的礼物是一套将军服，据她的姑姑、1998年叛逃美国的高英淑说，打那以后，将军们都会向他鞠躬致敬。

　　“He learned how power works from early age,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies in Dongguk University in Seoul.

　　“他小时候就明白权力的用处了，”位于首尔的东国大学朝鲜研究教授高有焕说。

　　North Korean state media have swaddled Mr. Kim’s childhood with mythmaking, portraying him as an excellent marksman and a “genius among geniuses” who loved to drive fast cars. At age 16, he is said to have written a research paper analyzing his grandfather’s leadership during the Korean War.

　　朝鲜国家媒体用神话包装了金先生的童年，将他塑造成神枪手，“天才中的天才”，喜欢开快车。16岁时，据说他撰写了一篇研究论文，分析祖父在朝鲜战争中的领导能力。

　　From 1996 until at least 2000, Mr. Kim is believed to have studied in public schools in Switzerland disguised as the son of a North Korean diplomat. The classes were taught in German, and Mr. Kim struggled with the language. A video recorded at the time shows him uncomfortably tapping a tambourine in a music class.

　　据信从1996年开始，至少到2000年，金先生一直在瑞士的私立寄宿学校读书，以朝鲜外交官的儿子作掩护。课程用德语教学，金语言不太灵光。当时的视频显示，他在一堂音乐课上不大自在地敲着铃鼓。

　　“We weren’t the dimmest kids in class but neither were we the cleverest,” a classmate, Joao Micaelo, told a British tabloid in 2011. Mr. Micaelo and others have said Mr. Kim was a quiet teenager who loved James Bond films and playing basketball. But he stood out because he had expensive sneakers and gadgets, including a Sony PlayStation, and enjoyed the services of a cook, a driver and a private tutor.

　　“我们不是班上最差劲的孩子，但也不是最聪明的，”同学若昂·米开罗2011年对一家英国小报说。米开罗和其他人说金先生是个安静的少年，喜欢看詹姆斯·邦德电影，打篮球。但他引人注目，因为他的运动鞋和装备很昂贵，还有一台索尼游戏机，有自己的厨师、司机和私教。

　　One classmate, Marco Imhof, recalled how he once scolded a servant for serving cold spaghetti. “I was surprised because it was not how he normally was,” Mr. Imhof said in an interview published in 2010.

　　同学马克·伊姆霍夫回忆，他一次曾因意大利面凉了斥责仆人。“我很吃惊，他平时不是那样的人，”伊姆霍夫先生在2010年播发的访谈中说。

　　There is evidence that Mr. Kim’s time as a youth in Europe, and perhaps other countries, left an impression. In his memoir, Mr. Fujimoto recalled conversations with Mr. Kim as a teenager in which the future leader expressed frustration with power shortages at home and marveled at overseas department stores.

　　有证据显示年轻的金先生在欧洲可能还有其他国家的日子对他产生了影响。藤本健二回忆和少年时代的金先生谈话，这位未来的领导人对国内电力不足感到懊丧，他对海外的百货商场感到惊奇。

　　“Japan was defeated by America, but they’ve greatly reconstructed the country. The shops were full of goods. What about our country?” Mr. Fujimoto quoted the young Mr. Kim as saying. Later in the conversation, Mr. Kim suggested that North Korea should learn from China’s market-oriented economic policies, Mr. Fujimoto wrote. Such accounts have left some analysts hopeful.

　　“日本被美国打败了，但他们却彻底重建。商店里琳琅满目。我们的国家呢?”藤本健二引用年轻的金先生说。后来的谈话中，金先生认为朝鲜应该学习中国的市场化经济政策，藤本健二写道。这些叙述让某些分析人士充满希望。

　　“When the time comes, Kim Jong-un is expected to adopt policies that will ease his country’s isolation and embrace good things from the West,” Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute, a think tank outside Seoul, said in a paper on Mr. Kim’s leadership published in February.

　　“时机成熟时，金正恩将采取政策，改观国家的孤立，接纳西方的好东西，”韩国智库世宗研究所朝鲜专家白鹤淳2月发表论文说。

　　‘Reign of Terror’

　　But first came what South Korean officials have called a “reign of terror.”

　　可首先到来的是韩国官员所谓的“恐怖统治”。

　　After returning to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, Mr. Kim graduated from the Kim Il-sung Military University in 2006 and was put on a fast track into the nation’s military leadership. Recent state propaganda footage has shown him inspecting military units in the years after graduation. In one scene, he is seen welcoming his father home from an overseas trip and shaking hands with him as an equal.

　　回到朝鲜首都平壤后，金先生就读于金日成综合军事大学，2006年毕业并直接进入国家的军队领导层。最近发布的国家宣传视频显示，他毕业后数年间就检阅了部队。一个画面中，他欢迎父亲海外访问归来，同父亲握手，地位平等。

　　After his father’s death, though, Mr. Kim’s hold on power is believed to have been precarious. He had completed his university education only five years earlier and was surrounded by experienced military leaders and party officials. Outside North Korea, many assumed he was the supreme leader in name only, with real power in the hands of Jang Song-thaek, his uncle and regent.

　　可据信父亲去世后，金先生对权力的掌控一直岌岌可危。他大学毕业刚五年，周围都是经验丰富的军队领导人和党内官员。朝鲜以外，许多人认为他不过是名义上的最高领导人，实权握在姑父及摄政者张成泽手中。

　　Mr. Jang appeared to help his nephew carry out a systematic purge, replacing many of the nation’s most powerful generals and bureaucrats, according to South Korean intelligence officials. But two years into his rule, Mr. Kim moved against his uncle, too, arranging for him to be arrested by uniformed officers during a Politburo meeting while hundreds of party delegates watched. Mr. Jang was executed on charges that included clapping “halfheartedly” when Mr. Kim entered the room and plotting to overthrow him.

　　韩国情报官员称，张成泽表面看来帮助侄子进行系统性清洗，更换了国内许多最有实力的将军和官僚。但执政两年后，金先生把矛头指向了他的姑父，在一次政治局会议上，在数百名党代表眼前，金先生安排军人逮捕了姑父。张成泽被处决，罪行包括金先生进屋时张成泽鼓掌“不诚心”，还有策划颠覆自己。

　　The purge continued with a new focus on rooting out those loyal to Mr. Jang. Many were executed with antiaircraft machine guns after members of the ruling elite were brought in by trucks to be witnesses, South Korean intelligence officials said. Cheong Seong-chang, an expert on the Kim family at the Sejong Institute, said high-level North Korean defectors told him that Mr. Jang had as many as 20 children and that Mr. Kim had them all killed.

　　清洗的新重心是铲除忠诚于张成泽的人。韩国情报官员称，许多人被用高射机枪处决，用卡车把高层精英拉来观看处决。世宗研究所金家专家郑相昌说，朝鲜高层叛逃者告诉他，张成泽有20个孩子，金先生把他们全杀了。

　　In total, since taking power, Mr. Kim is believed to have executed more than 140 senior officials. “He moved quickly and ruthlessly,” said Daniel A. Pinkston, a Seoul-based professor of international relations at Troy University. “I think most people did not expect a man so young to be so proficient at managing his dictatorship.”

　　据信，掌权以来，金先生共处决了超过140名高级官员。“他动作又快又狠，”特洛伊大学驻首尔国际关系教授丹尼尔·平克斯顿说。“我认为大多数人没想到这么年轻的一个人，把独裁统治玩得这么娴熟。”

　　Analysts say Mr. Kim has restored the authority of the Workers’ Party apparatus and uses it as his main vehicle for governing, in contrast with his father, who put the military first, rarely convened formal party meetings and made decisions in secretive, late-night sessions of his cronies. That, some say, has added a degree of institutional predictability to his rule.

　　分析人士称，金先生恢复了劳动党机构的权威，并用它作为主要的统治工具，这不像他的父亲，主张军队第一，很少召开正式党内会议，总是与亲信在深夜里秘密开会并做出决策。有人说，这让他的统治多了几分机制化，有迹可循。

　　But Mr. Kim has not abandoned his father’s use of hagiography in the state news media, which portrays him as all-powerful, with even the party’s second-ranking official, Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, fawning over him in recent photos.

　　但金先生并未放弃父亲的做法，在国家媒体上将自己塑造成圣人，媒体认为他全知全能，最近公布的照片中，甚至国家的二把手副元帅黄炳誓都一直奉承他。

　　Mr. Rodman, the former professional basketball player, has described going to a stadium packed with 150,000 people during the 2013 visit to Pyongyang where he was allowed to meet Mr. Kim. “People were standing for a half-hour, just clapping,” he told an audience at West Point in March. “They were crying for this man.”

　　前职业篮球运动员罗德曼先生2013年访问朝鲜并获准会见金先生，他形容当时15万人挤在体育场中。“人们站了半个小时，不停鼓掌，”他3月在西点军校演讲时说。“他们为那个男人哭出声来。”

　　In a departure from his father’s style, though, Mr. Kim has sought to cultivate a folksy, man-of-the-people image. He is shown throwing his arms around soldiers, visiting workers at home and cradling babies in hospital nurseries. He is also sometimes accompanied to events by his fashionably dressed wife, Ri Sol-ju, a break from the secrecy that shrouded his father’s marriages.

　　可与他父亲的风格不同，金先生试图打造一种和蔼、亲民的形象。他张开双臂同士兵拥抱，走到工人家中去，在医院育儿室抱婴儿。有时他还有打扮入时的妻子李雪主相伴，这与父亲有所不同，父亲的婚姻密不透风。

　　Mr. Rodman was even allowed to hold Mr. Kim’s baby daughter, the first confirmation for much of the world that he had a child. (South Korean officials believe that Ms. Ri had a second child last year, a son.)

　　甚至罗德曼先生还获准抱着金先生的小女儿，第一次向世人确定，他有孩子了。(韩国官员认为李女士去年又生了一个儿子。)

　　Analysts say Mr. Kim seems to be trying to tap into nostalgia for his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, who ruled North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994 and is still revered as a godlike figure. Kim Jong-un appears to have adopted his grandfather’s slow gait, beaming smile, closely cropped hair and even his way of holding a cigarette. Some suggest Mr. Kim even gained weight on purpose to mirror his grandfather’s stocky build.

　　分析人士表示，金先生看样子要学习祖父金日成，金日成1948年建国后统治朝鲜，一直到1994年，至今仍被尊为神一般的人物。金正恩看起来同他祖父一样，步态缓慢，满面春风，留小平头，甚至拿烟的方式都差不多。有人说金先生甚至有意增加体重，以模仿祖父敦实的身材。

　　“When North Koreans first saw him, we thought Kim Il-sung was reincarnated,” said Baek Yu-min, a North Korean defector.

　　“朝鲜人第一次看到他，我们以为金日成重生了，”一名朝鲜叛逃者说。

　　‘Parallel Advance’

　　During much of Kim Il-sung’s rule, North Korea’s economy was bigger than South Korea’s. But today, per capita income in the North is less than 5 percent what it is in the South. That chasm poses perhaps the greatest threat to Kim Jong-un’s political legitimacy.

　　金日成统治大部分时间，朝鲜的经济规模都比韩国大。可今天，朝鲜人均收入不足韩国的5%。这种差距可能对金正恩的政权合法性造成最严峻的威胁。

　　Mr. Kim’s answer has been to pursue a policy of “byungjin,” or parallel advance, which calls for the simultaneous pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development. Only with a nuclear deterrent, Mr. Kim contends, will the North be secure enough to focus on growth.

　　金先生的答案是推行“并行路线”，核武器和经济发展同时推动。金先生认为，只有有了核威慑，朝鲜才能获得安全，一心谋发展。

　　Mr. Kim has improved access to food and goods by allowing more market activities. He has also launched a building boom in Pyongyang, where the most loyal citizens are allowed to live. Despite decades of sanctions and international isolation, the economy has lately shown surprising signs of life.

　　金先生放松了市场管制，让人们可以买到更多食品和商品。他在平壤大搞建设，而只有忠诚的人才允许居住在这里。尽管经过数十年的制裁和国际孤立，最近经济倒显得生气勃勃，实在令人惊奇。

　　But conditions remain dismal outside the showcase capital, and further growth may require an end to the sanctions that limit the North’s ability to trade with the world. And that would mean giving up the nuclear program.

　　可在作为样板的首都之外，情况依旧很糟糕，持续增长需要结束制裁，制裁限制了朝鲜与世界通商的能力，那就意味着要放弃核计划。

　　Mr. Kim, however, appears to see the problem differently. More than 30,000 North Koreans have fled since the famine of the 1990s, and defectors say he must keep the country isolated because he is afraid of it being swallowed by the South.

　　然而，金先生看问题的方式不同。九十年代的饥荒发生以来，超过3万名朝鲜人逃跑，叛逃者说他必须闭关锁国，因为他害怕被韩国吞并。

　　That is where the nuclear arsenal comes in. His government has argued that it needs nuclear arms to protect itself from being toppled like others who gave up weapons of mass destruction; the state news media has pointed to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein.

　　这就是建设核武库的原因。政府声言需要核武器保证不被颠覆，那些放弃大规模杀伤性武器的政权都完蛋了，国家新闻媒体提到卡扎菲上校和萨达姆·侯赛因。

　　But the North has also said it hopes to use nuclear arms to force the world, including the United States, to accept it as a full member of the international community on its terms — just as Washington eventually recognized China after it became a nuclear power.

　　但朝鲜也表示，希望核武器能迫使世界，包括美国在内，接受其在国际社会中的完全地位，正如中国拥有核能力后就获得了美国政府的承认。

　　“Kim Jong-un is here to rule for decades, playing the long game,” said Mr. Koh, the Dongguk University professor. “Over time, he believes that the world will have no option but to accept his country as a nuclear power.”

　　“金正恩要统治几十年，那是一场拉力赛，”东国大学教授高有焕说。“他认为时间一长，世界就没别的办法，只能承认朝鲜是一个核国家。”

　　Analysts say it may be difficult for Mr. Kim to back down in the face of foreign pressure, especially on the nuclear issue, given how closely he is associated with the program.

　　分析人士认为，很难让金先生在外国压力下屈服，尤其在核问题上，他和核计划息息相关。

　　The state news media has highlighted what it claims is his military daring, especially in dealing with the United States. One recent propaganda film reported that Mr. Kim persuaded his father to approve the test firing of a long-range rocket in 2009, when he would have been about 25.

　　国家新闻媒体高调报道他的军事勇气，尤其在对付美国方面。最近发布的一条宣传影片称，金先生劝说父亲2009年批准试射一枚远程火箭，当时他大概25岁。

　　If the Americans intervened, he was said to have argued, the North should go to war.

　　据称他曾扬言，如果美国人干预，朝鲜准备打上一仗。