Jonathan argues that for 81 years and counting, the cult of personality has been the only reality that the 25 million people of North Korea have known - and it is one that is almost entirely sealed off from the outside world, and backed with a nuclear arsenal.

What is lesser known is that the personality cult was built by a former Sunday school and church organist named Kim Il Sung. Kim was a third-generation Presbyterian convert who was born and raised in Pyongyang, a city so thoroughly penetrated with the Christian gospel that it was known as the "Jerusalem of the East".

Jonathan recounts how it was that the son and grandson of devout Presbyterian converts came to build an extraordinary cult of personality that would outlast those of Stalin and Mao and every prediction of North Korea's demise.

Jonathan Cheng is the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, overseeing coverage of the world’s second-largest economy across politics, economics, business, technology and society. Jonathan leads a team of two dozen correspondents and researchers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore and New York, with responsibility for the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

Previously, Jonathan was the Korea bureau chief for The Journal, running coverage of North Korea and South Korean politics and business. He began his career as an intern in The Journal’s Hong Kong bureau and also worked as a markets reporter in the Journal’s New York office.

Jonathan is from Toronto, Canada and graduated from Princeton University with a degree in history. He speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, French and Korean and lives in Beijing.