Pomp, ceremony in North Korea for rare congress
Kim Jong Un will avoid poor economy and big policy statements, analysts predict
PYONGYANG— The streets of Pyongyang, this most Potemkin of villages, are festooned with red this week, as the North Korean regime prepares to open the seventh congress of its ruling Workers’ Party.
It will be the highest meeting of the communist organization through which the Kim family has kept a grip on this state for three generations, and the first such confab since 1980 — several years before the current leader, Kim Jong Un, was even born.
And no effort is being spared in the lead-up to the event.
The entire country has been caught up in a “70-day speed battle” to prepare for the congress, painting buildings bright colours, decorating hedges with coloured lights and attaching red Workers’ Party flags to street lamps — which, unusually, are even illuminated.
On almost every block in the centre of this showcase capital, handpainted red and white signs feature slogans such as “Together with the party forever.” On Tuesday night, hundreds of people gathered near Kim Il Sung Square in the driving rain to practise for a torchlight parade.
With many adults out working until after 10 p.m., residents of Pyongyang and recent visitors say that the 70day campaign has had a much greater impact on the state’s ability to function properly than the sanctions imposed following North Korea’s January nuclear test.
But what will take place at the congress this week is, like many things about North Korea, unknown to outsiders.
China and the Soviet Union used congresses to announce major new policy changes, such as “socialism with Chinese characteristics” under Deng Xiaoping and perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev. At the last congress in North Korea, 36 years ago, Kim Il Sung, the founding president of North Korea, unveiled his son, Kim Jong Il, as his successor.
While some analysts expect significant policy announcements or personnel changes, others are betting that Kim Jong Un, the founder’s grandson, will play it safe.
“There is a general superstition about big announcements in North Korea,” said Michael Madden, who runs the North Korean Leadership Watch website. “They don’t want to announce a huge policy and have it be a failure. They don’t want a whole lot of external observers nitpicking them to death.”
Madden instead expects Kim, who promised to raise living standards when he took over at the end of 2011, to focus on the economy. “This is about putting together some economic policy modifications that they’re going to put in place over the next three to five years,” he said.
Kim has already allowed more of the market reforms that began under his father, tolerating more private trade and enabling people to earn livelihoods that are not dependent on the cash-strapped state. He also changed the agricultural quota system, allowing farmers to keep or sell more of their crops.
But these changes have been tentative, and most have not been officially announced, enabling the regime to roll them back if they do not work — or if they work too well.
The economy has been growing in recent years, thanks in part to a commodity boom and heavy demand in neighbouring China for North Korea’s coal, iron ore and other minerals. That has enabled Kim to spruce up the capital, building new apartment towers and restaurants, as well as amusement parks and even a dolphinarium.
Now, China’s economy is slowing, and tightened international sanctions on North Korea following its nuclear and missile tests this year have been designed to hurt the regime.
There will be no mention of that at the congress, North Korea analysts said. Instead, the proceedings will include plenty of breathy exhortations about Kim Il Sung, the “eternal president” of North Korea, and Kim Jong Il, the father of the current leader.
Already, regional party conferences have elected Kim Jong Un as their delegate to the congress. They cited the way he has strengthened the Workers’ Party and “enhanced its leading ability in every way, fully displaying the dignity and might of Juche Korea,” according to the state media.
“Juche” is North Korea’s homegrown ideology that is often translated as “self-reliance” — a mantra here even though North Korea has relied on China and, previously, the Soviet Union to keep it afloat.