Kim Jong Un, Harry Truman: World leaders who don't cross the border
The North Korean leader’s recent hush-hush trip to Beijing piqued much international interest.
By ET Bureau | Updated:
By Shannon Tellis
There are some world leaders who make a splash with their international visits and then there are others who seldom seem to leave their national borders, like these five.
The North Korean leader’s recent hush-hush trip to Beijing piqued much international interest. After all, this was Kim’s first public international trip since taking power six years ago. And Kim couldn’t have made a stronger choice for his international debut than its only military ally. The landmark Sino-North Korea meeting comes ahead of Kim’s summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump. Could this be a new start for the secluded Supreme Leader?
During his four-decade rule, Castro rarely left his country, choosing instead to invite foreign leaders to Havana. The socialist leader visited 21 countries with a ‘Good Will’ tour in 1959. Castro also accepted an invitation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors to speak at their annual conference in New York. There, he was snubbed by president Dwight Eisenhower, who chose to go golfing instead. However, Castro’s debut visit was not without incident. A 23-year old man was arrested in Central Park with a homemade bomb only 200 feet from where Castro stood addressing a crowd.
The former Chinese president only visited seven countries during his decade long rule and his first trip to the US is a good example of why. Expecting to receive the full honours accorded to a visiting head of state, China was left disappointed when George W Bush merely provided them with lunch. The visit was further marred when Jintao was heckled by a member of the Falun Gong religious sect (banned in China) during his opening remarks. To add insult to injury, a White House announcer introduced the Chinese national anthem using the name of its arch rival, Taiwan.
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Harry S Truman The former US president is the least travelled US head since the time jet planes were first used as a mode of transport for foreign state visits. In his eight-year tenure, Truman ticked off five countries from his list. Aside from state visits to neighbouring Mexico, Bermuda, Canada and Brazil, Truman’s only trans-Atlantic trip was the Potsdam Conference with Churchill and Stalin in Germany in 1945.
During his presidency, Gerald Ford made only seven international trips and was the first US president in office to visit Japan after the devastating Hiroshima blast. Due to this, over 10,000 Japanese policemen and 40 Secret Service men were assigned to protect Ford from Japanese leftists who were agitating against continued US military presence in Japan. Security was so heightened that anything “too dangerous” was cancelled, including an exhibition game between the New York Mets and a local team.
