Kim Jong Un likes K-pop music, banned in North Korea. That could be a diplomatic breakthrough.

It might be a diplomatic breakthrough: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un admitted this week that he likes K-pop music, saying he was “deeply moved” after watching a two-hour concert with South Korean performers in Pyongyang.

That's no idle comment. K-pop and other South Korean entertainment, including its popular soap operas, are banned in North Korea. People have been imprisoned for watching or listening to it.

The concert was the latest in a series of diplomatic moves designed to ease tensions in the weeks leading up to a possible summit between President Trump and Kim. It was partly in response to North Korea’s dispatching of its highly regimented cheerleaders, the so-called army of beauties, to the Olympics in South Korea in February.

But K-pop, with its highly choreographed dancing and slickly produced videos, has been a powerful diplomatic weapon in its own right. South Korea has frequently blasted the music across the demilitarized zone in an effort to entice soldiers from the North to defect.

On occasion the siren song has worked. A North Korean soldier who dashed across the DMZ last year and was shot five times by his fellow troops asked to listen to K-pop girl bands while he was recovering in the hospital.

“A lot of North Koreans are secretly fans of K-pop,” said Euny Hong, journalist and author of The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World through Pop Culture.

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The concert Kim enjoyed Sunday featured popular girl band Red Velvet and singer Cho Yong Pil. Kim and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, clapped along with the music, and Kim later posed for pictures with the artists backstage.

Experts remain wary Kim’s enthusiasm signals a change of heart and say it is unlikely Kim would ease those and other restrictions. “He’s not going to be emptying the gulags,” said Bruce Bennett, an analyst at RAND Corporation, referring to labor camps.

Instead, Kim is trying to appear less frightening. “He’s trying to prove to South Korea that he really is a good guy,” Bennett said.

Kim has also refrained from criticizing the joint military exercises that began this week between South Korea and the United States, drills that historically have triggered threats from the North.

Kim is scheduled to meet later this month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in for a summit that will help set the stage for a proposed meeting between Kim and Trump to discuss denuclearization. No date for that meeting has been set.

Sunday's concert highlights the power of K-pop, which has grown into a multi-billion dollar a year industry as its popularity has spread throughout Asia and elsewhere, including the United States.

Unlike rock music, whose history is embedded in rebellion, K-pop's roots are more business like. 

The industry emerged from a financial crisis in the late 1990s when South Korea’s economy tanked and the government decided to support an effort to diversify from heavy manufacturing into high technology and entertainment, Hong said.

The government took a methodical approach, helping to build an industry like it would any other business. Today, the bands are groomed in almost factory-like settings where entertainment companies come up with a concept and then look for talent. Most stars are recruited in their teens.

Hong referred to the groups as “prefabricated.”

“The band doesn’t form by itself,” Hong said. “Companies will say, 'We need a band with four guys, including a short funny guy and a lady’s man.' Then they start auditioning.”

The bands are trained in ruthless music boot camps where they practice dance moves around the clock for years before they appear on stage. They are outfitted in costumes and careful attention is paid to makeup and hairstyles. Those who don’t catch on are dropped.

The result is typically an act that is so perfect the bands often appear “alien” and other worldly, Hong said.

Audiences are growing and the industry has become a major South Korean export. Global sales for K-pop related music and videos grew to $5 billion a year, up from about $3.7 billion five years ago, according to the government’s Korea Creative Content Agency, which tracks the industry.

K-pop may be at the center of a political struggle, but its artists remain unambiguously apolitical and avoid controversial subjects.

“In Korea people feel like celebrities have no business engaging in politics,” Hong said.