NORTH KOREA, a past master of pageantry, has staged a spectacular coming-out ceremony for its leader-in-waiting, Kim Jong Un, while making it clear that his ailing father Kim Jong Il, remains very much in command. The two men reviewed a parade of tanks, missiles and goose-stepping soldiers which cut through the centre of Pyongyang, providing citizens with a striking demonstration of the Kim dynasty's power and its plans to keep it in the family.

Extraordinarily for a country that likes to keep the foreign media at bay, North Korean officials suddenly let it be known a couple of days before the event that Western correspondents would be allowed to attend. Journalists were told they could fly to Pyongyang on October 9th to attend a military parade the following day marking the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Workers' Party. It was only after we arrived (some 80 astonished Western journalists in all) that officials made it clear that the two Kims would be there too. North Korea, it seemed, wanted Western eyes to confirm the dynastic succession strategy that the party approved about two weeks earlier at a rare conclave. It was to be the first sighting by foreign journalists of Kim Jong Un, who is the third son of Kim Jong Il and still in his late 20s.

Some of the journalists got to see the two Kims on the evening of October 9th as they watched a mass performance of synchronised gymnastics in a Pyongyang stadium. These are regular events in the North Korean capital and are used by the impoverished country to generate hard currency from foreign tourists. But it was the choreography of the military parade on October 10th that hammered home the point.

It took place in Kim Il Sung Square, named after the dynasty's late founder. Almost everything about the square suggested homage to the Kim family, from huge digital screens that periodically displayed pictures of flowers named after Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il (Kimilsungia and Kimjongilia, as they're officially known), to two giant portraits of the late Kim (one dour-looking, the other grinning). The sound of three bangs on a gong signalled the impending arrival of Kim's son and grandson. The audience of specially invited guests (many of them men in military uniform) stood and cheered ecstatically as the two men took their positions on a balcony overlooking the square.

The Kims stood slightly in front of the military and civilian leaders who had lined up in rows on either side of them. Directly below them was the gold-framed grinning Kim portrait—father, son and holy ghost, as it were, arranged in a neat symmetry. Father and son stood a couple of paces apart, leaving room for a top North Korean military official to later take position in between them (saluting first father, then son, as he did so).

Kim the youngest, as North Korean officials agreed, looked the spitting image of his grandfather. For someone who has only just been plucked from obscurity to take the second-highest-ranking position in North Korea's military command, the Young General—as North Koreans now call him—looked relatively relaxed. Occasionally during the one-hour-20-minute parade he exchanged a few words with military leaders close to him. But he was careful to defer to his father, saluting the troops below only after Kim Jong Il began to raise his hand to do so. After the parade, Kim Jong Il walked from one end of the long balcony to the other, looking over it occasionally to wave at the audience below as they shouted “Long live the great leader, Kim Jong Il!” some of them jumping for joy. Kim Jong Un did not join him. He merely stood and watched his father while clapping politely.

The parade began with a march-past of troops, stepping in such perfect time that the ground shook, escorting an ornate portrait of Kim Il Sung. At least a couple of female paratroopers, seated in trucks that were driven past the Kims, were seen to be fighting back tears of emotion as they caught sight of the leaders. It is unlikely that the youngest Kim evokes such a reaction by himself as yet. North Korea has yet to embark on constructing for him the sort of full-fledged personality cult that surrounds Kim Jong Il and the late Kim Il Sung. There are as yet no books available to praise his exploits. North Koreans have only just got their first inkling that Kim Jong Un is beginning to learn the ropes, with the North Korean media reporting a visit by him and his father to inspect a new housing project.

In 1992, when inspecting a military parade two years' before his father's death, Kim Jong Il addressed the troops, saying, “Glory to the officers and soldiers of the Korean people”. It was the first time his voice was heard in public, though he had been designated to succeed his father in 1980. Kim Jong Un has yet to be groomed to the extent that his father is ready to let him utter such a phrase. Both Kims kept quiet this time.