Change is underway on the Korean Peninsula. At the Eighth Korean Workers’ Party Congress in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un orchestrated a decisive shift in the country’s bedrock economic and military policies. He moved away from his father’s “Military First” principle (
Songun), which gave precedence to the Korea People’s Armed Forces, and supplanted it with an ideology of “People and Masses First” (
Inmin Daejung Jaeil). This reorganization of North Korea’s system of governance empowers the ruling party at the expense of the KPAF, supporting Kim’s perpetual quest for power consolidation. More important, it sets the stage for efforts to resuscitate North Korea’s dying economy.
Is North Korea’s Byungjin Policy in Crisis?
North Korean authorities describe efforts to protect the country from the coronavirus epidemic as a matter of national existence.
In April 2021, during a speech to ten thousand members of the Korean Workers Party, Kim Jong-un admitted that North Korea is in the most difficult situation in its history and is now on the brink of a precipice. The North Korean leader called on party activists to undertake another arduous march full of work and sacrifice, according to reports in North Korean state media. The term arduous march is a reference to the crisis in North Korea in the early 1990s, when up to 3 million people died in the country as a result of the famine. Kim urged party members to be more proactive and take responsibility for implementing the new five-year economic plan adopted at the Korean Workers Party Congress in January 2020.
Is North Korea Inching Closer to Instability? nationalinterest.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalinterest.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
May 27, 2021
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“We’re waiting to see if Pyongyang actually wants to engage. The ball is in their court.”: In a recent interview with ABC following the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Joe Biden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the call for North Korea to return to the negotiating table.
Significantly, the South Korea-U.S. summit held in Washington, D.C. last week has created momentum for talks between Washington and Pyongyang, which have been stalled since 2019. Consultations with South Korea convinced the United States to keep the North Korean issue as a top priority and to signal Washington’s willingness to resume negotiations if Pyongyang is amenable. Biden reiterated that while the U.S. stood by the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration and Singapore Joint Statement, it would engage with North Korea diplomatically to take “pragmatic steps” toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Biden also used th
韓美 잠수함, 북한 바다서 SLBM 발사 촬영했다 : 주간동아 donga.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from donga.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.