Can We See Kim Jong-un Again?

After his no-deal Hanoi summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, one question worth pondering, however implausible it may sound in the immediate and confusing aftermath, is: would Kim Jong-un, the youthful North Korean leader, be able to hang on to power?

Kim was reportedly ditching some of his remaining itinerary to go home early after splitting from Trump without having lunch together in the Vietnamese capital Thursday. But it would not soften the reality that he is going home empty-handed.

The failed mission may pose an existential threat to Kim, who has inherited fear-based rule from his father Kim Jong-il and his grandfather and national founder Kim Il-sung.

The problem is that the young Kim lacks the charisma of his granddad, who was appointed to lead a Soviet puppet regime and solidified power by an incessant series of purges, or the long apprenticeship his father had as heir apparent.

Judging from the events leading to his ascension, the young Kim was hurriedly chosen by his father during his dying days. So Kim owes his status to his blue lineage, but that is where his legitimacy ends.

That means he can scarcely afford to look weak or otherwise have his supposed image of ideological immaculacy tarnished. The Hanoi affair could do that damage to him.

A contrast with Trump can be striking. The U.S. president, being called in public a "racist, liar and conman" by his once close lieutenant Michael Cohen while he was meeting Kim, has had his reputation damaged so much so that another failure will not make much difference.

Rather, Trump received praise from his colleagues for not agreeing to any deal with the North. Before the summit, across the political spectrum in the U.S., calls for no deal rather than bad deal with the North prevailed.

For Trump, the worst would be an impeachment if the Muller probe confirms Russians helped in his 2016 presidential election. He could pull the Nixon act in the Watergate scandal ? resigning before the Senate vote and get his successor, Vice President Mike Pence, to pardon him.

But for Kim, it would be a different story.

If it was intended to counter Trump's early solo meeting with the media, the wee-hour news conference by the North's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho and Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui lacked punch.

It appeared that the North Koreans including Kim genuinely felt more than disappointed. In its first reaction after the failed summit, the North's state media meekly stated that the two...