North Korean leader Kim Jong Un put the economy front and center in an agenda-setting speech at the end of a key meeting of the ruling party, state media reported Saturday, without mentioning the United States.
Rather than the political positions on diplomacy for which Kim’s New Year’s statements have been closely followed in recent years, he focused on food security and development in a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
The impoverished nuclear-armed nation has been under a rigid, self-imposed coronavirus lockdown that has hit its economy.
In a speech at the end of the party meeting on Friday, Kim acknowledged the “tough situation” in 2021 while laying out plans for next year, the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
He described the challenges of 2022 as “a great fight to life and death” and set “an important task to achieve radical progress in solving the problem of food, clothing and housing for the people,” said KCNA.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting border closure saw the country record its biggest economic contraction in more than two decades in 2020, according to South Korea’s central bank.
Concerns about a full-blown food crisis in North Korea have risen, and a United Nations human rights expert warned in October that the most vulnerable were “at risk of starvation.”
Kim, who came to power just over a decade after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, said that fighting the pandemic was one of the main goals for the coming year.
“Emergency epidemic prevention work should be a priority in state work,” Kim said according to KCNA.
Analysts pointed to the impact of Covid as the reason for the increased focus on the economy.
“The pandemic continues to limit North Korea’s diplomacy, decimating its economy and making border controls the main security problem,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, told AFP.
‘Survival mode’
Kim did not mention the United States or refer directly to foreign policy.
But he said Pyongyang will continue to increase its military capabilities taking into account “the military environment on the Korean peninsula” and the changing international situation.
That includes ensuring loyalty and obedience in the military, upgrading the militias and “producing the powerful equipment corresponding to modern warfare,” Kim said, citing KCNA.
He did not provide further details.
“Overall, Kim might be aware that revealing sophisticated military development plans while people suffer food shortages and difficult conditions outside Pyongyang might not be a good idea this year,” tweeted Chad O’Carroll of the specialist website NK News. .
“North Korea is pretty much in survival mode by 2022, and it really doesn’t know what to do … (about) foreign policy right now.”
Pyongyang is under multiple sets of international sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which have progressed rapidly under the Kim government.
But the worsening economic situation during the pandemic has not weakened those programs, and North Korea has continued to develop weapons, according to a UN report in October.
In 2021, North Korea said it successfully tested a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile; a long-range cruise missile; a weapon thrown by a train; and what he described as a hypersonic warhead.
The country has stayed away from talks about its nuclear program since the 2019 collapse of the dialogue between Kim and then-US President Donald Trump.
Under Trump’s successor Joe Biden, the United States has repeatedly declared its willingness to meet with North Korean representatives, while saying it will seek denuclearization.
But Pyongyang has so far rejected the offer, accusing Washington of pursuing “hostile” policies.