At a meeting of the enlarged Politburo of the Communist Party, Kim said that “a serious case” had caused “a great crisis” and “the security of the population and the country in the framework of efforts to control the pandemic were threatened.” The announcement by the state news agency CCNA sparked speculation abroad that the coronavirus had spread widely across the country. North Korea also suffers from other serious problems – the economy is in dire straits and the population is at risk of starvation.
A congress of the Women’s Union was recently held in Pyongyang. Head of State Kim Jong Un sent a greeting, which was not the usual courtesy, but contained detailed instructions on how women can cope with the current challenges.
Appeals to the population
Today, when things are complicated and difficult, people need to stand behind the party even more confidently, including women, “who are half the population.” Therefore, according to Kim, women must be devoted daughters-in-law and mothers, to raise their children according to state doctrine, to read the state media daily, to wear traditional Korean clothes, to sing revolutionary songs, to get involved in raising rabbits for meat production, etc.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the letter could be seen as Kim’s attempt to mobilize the population for times of crisis, as the coronavirus pandemic has put North Korea to a particularly severe test. The state leader himself has repeatedly described the country’s situation as dire. At a Labor Party congress in January, he made no secret of the fact that “almost all industries have lagged behind their goals.”
But there are also analysts who say the declaration of a “major crisis” is an attempt by Kim to ask for foreign aid – including vaccines against Kovid-19. If the virus has indeed spread widely, it will be another blow to the regime and to the severely damaged economy.
In April, Kim mentioned a “torturous march”, recalling the greatest famine that struck North Korea in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country’s mainstay. And it was only recently that Kim acknowledged that after the damage inflicted on the crop by bad weather, food security “creates tension”.
Sanctions and the coronavirus make things worse
International observers say the current crisis is due not only to the devastating storms of 2020, but also to UN sanctions imposed on an isolated nuclear state with a party dictatorship. As well as the national policy to combat the coronavirus: due to the pandemic, the country has become almost completely isolated and therefore does not accept any support from international organizations or the North Korean government. But Kim would not mention the crisis if he did not want to show his compatriots how thoughtfully he approaches each problem. He claims to be a martyr who works for the party. And the reforms of the new five-year plan are already bearing fruit.
The regime needs arguments to discipline people in times of pandemic, as there are no solutions other than isolation and lockdown. Hospitals are poorly equipped, and vaccines are out of the question. However, North Korea has no plans to engage in dialogue with the United States. At the last meeting of the Central Committee, Kim said that “there must be both a readiness for dialogue and a readiness for confrontation.”
US Security Adviser Jack Sullivan described it as an “interesting sign”, but North Korea immediately responded by denying that the United States had “wrong expectations”. Foreign Minister Ri Son Guon added: “We are not even considering contact with the United States.”
But Kim realizes that North Korea still needs partners. North Korean expert Andrei Lankov of Kukmin University in Seoul has registered major changes in the Kim regime’s policies, intended to please China in particular. China is the only major aide Kim is accepting, and it’s probably because of it that the famine in North Korea isn’t as great now as it was in the 1990s.
Kim’s health
North Koreans, meanwhile, are deeply concerned about their overly emaciated leader, even crying when they watch him on television, as one of Kim’s subjects said. Kim’s weight is thought to have dropped by 10 to 20 kilograms, but it could also be a propaganda maneuver in times of crisis. So far, he weighed 140 kilograms at a height of 1.70 kg, in recent photos he looks significantly thinner.
Some observers suggest that Kim may have been on a diet for health reasons, but there are also the exact opposite – that he lost weight due to illness. His health is attracting attention, as the 37-year-old North Korean dictator has never named a possible successor. Kim is known to smoke and drink a lot, and his father and grandfather died of heart disease.
The material is published in DW
–
