Kim acknowledges ‘painful lessons’ as economy suffers
North Korean leader Kim Jongun has opened a rare ruling party Congress this week with a frank admission that his country’s economy ‘‘immensely underachieved’’ in the past five years, and that he has learned ‘‘painful lessons’’ from the experience, state media have reported.
Since taking power in 2011, Kim has made a habit of admitting failures even as he celebrates the successes of his regime.
Last October, he made a tearful apology to the North Korean people for failing to always live up to their expectations, under the twin pressures of sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic and after one of the toughest years for the country’s economy in decades.
This week, Kim did not flag any fundamental change in direction, however, nor suggest that he would approach the West for sanctions relief. The ‘‘quickest and surest solution’’ to the problems North Korea was facing was the ‘‘reinforcement of our very own self-reliant power by all possible means’’, he said.
Kim also celebrated the regime’s ‘‘miraculous victories’’ over the past five years and the ‘‘remarkable’’ achievement of being able to hold the Eighth Congress
of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a pandemic, as he addressed about 7000 delegates who were not wearing masks.
It was only the second party Congress in four decades, with previous ones in 2016 and 1980.
Kim appears to be moving towards a Chinese model of meeting every five years to review and chart economic plans.
Kim made no mention of the United States, although he said that ‘‘reactionary forces’’ that were hostile towards North Korea had ‘‘suffered severe damage’’.
But unlike in 2016, he also made no mention of nuclear weapons, and his language left the door open to possible engagement with US President-elect Joe Biden, experts said.
Lim Eul-chul, an expert on the North Korean economy at South Korea’s Kyungnam University, said he saw hints of possible economic overhauls in the next five-year plan that should be announced this week as the Congress continues.
‘‘Kim himself is painfully aware of the problems inside the
North Korean society,’’ Lim said.
In his speech, Kim said officials had been dispatched to different parts of the country ‘‘to sincerely listen to voices of party members, farmers and workers on the ground’’. Lim said this signalled Kim’s willingness to ‘‘understand public sentiment at the grassroots level and develop a more realistic and effective solution’’.
While reliable figures for economic growth are hard to come by, North Korea’s trade with neighbour China, its main trading partner, fell to roughly a quarter of its prior levels in 2020, according to Chinese customs data.