The sight of a grimacing Kim Jong Un on board an inflatable rubber dinghy is not what one would expect from the leader of a country which has repeatedly threatened to ‘annihilate’ the United States. As floods ravage across provinces along North Korea’s border with China, the North Korean leader has leapt upon the occasion to berate his officials for mismanagement, reinforce state ideology, and emphasise that under the protection of the Supreme Leader, all will – eventually – be well.