Kim faces toughest moment in power
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has acknowledged his country was facing the ‘‘worst-ever situation’’ as he addressed thousands of grassroots members of his ruling party during a major political conference in Pyongyang.
Experts say Kim is facing perhaps his toughest moment as he approaches a decade in rule, with North Korea’s coronavirus lockdown unleashing further shock on an economy devastated by decades of mismanagement and crippling US-led sanctions over his nuclear weapons programme.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim made the comments during an opening speech at a meeting of the Workers’ Party’s cell secretaries yesterday.
‘‘Improving the people’s living standards ... even in the worstever situation in which we have to overcome unprecedentedly numerous challenges depends on the role played by the cells, the grassroots organisations of the party,’’ Kim said.
He urged members to carry out the decisions made at a party congress in January, when he vowed to bolster his nuclear deterrent in the face of US pressure and announced a new five-year national development plan.
The congress came months after Kim during another political conference showed unusual candour by acknowledging that his plans to improve the economy weren’t succeeding.
Kim also criticised the party’s grassroots units for unspecified ‘‘shortcomings’’ that should be immediately corrected to ensure the ‘‘healthy and sustainable’’ development of the party.
Party cells, which consist of five to 30 members, are the smallest units of party authority that oversee the works and lives at factories and other places.
The network is an important tool for Workers’ Party to perpetuate its power. The previous conference of cell secretaries was held in 2017.
The economic setbacks have left Kim with nothing to show for his ambitious diplomacy with former President Donald Trump, which collapsed over disagreements in lifting sanctions for the North’s denuclearisation steps.
The North has so far rejected the Biden administration’s overture for talks, and raised pressure by resuming tests of ballistic missiles last month after a yearlong pause.
Perfect record
Isolated North Korea has
continued
to claim a perfect record in keeping out the coronavirus in its latest report to the World Health Organisation.
At the beginning of the pandemic more than a year ago, North Korea described its efforts to keep out the virus as a ‘‘matter of national existence.’’ It shut its borders, banned tourists and jetted out diplomats. It says there has not been a case of Covid-19, a widely doubted claim given its poor health infrastructure and a porous border with China, its economic lifeline. –